Archaeological Updates: Gaza treasures shown in Paris exhibition after destruction
Photo courtesy of Guilhem Vellut / Wikimedia Commons
Around a hundred artifacts have been rescued from disasters in Gaza over the past century where they will not be shown in the Institut Du Monde Arabe in Paris, France.
Around a hundred artifacts have been rescued from disaster in Gaza over the past century. They will now be shown at the Institut Du Monde Arabe (IMA) in Paris, France, from Apr. 3 through Nov. 2, 2025. The exhibit is named “Trésors sauvés de Gaza - 5000 ans d'histoire” or “Saved Treasures of Gaza: 5,000 Years of History” in English. IMA states, “Gaza is home to a wealth of archaeological sites from all eras that are now in peril.”
The IMA— with the help of the Geneva Museum of Art and History (MAH) and the support of the Palestinian National Authority —is exhibiting 130 artifacts from the collection. The IMA explained, “Since 2007, the Geneva Museum of Art and History (MAH) has become the museum-refuge for an archaeological collection of nearly 529 works belonging to the Palestinian National Authority and which have never been able to return to Gaza.” The artifacts include “Amphorae, statuettes, funerary steles, oil lamps, figurines, mosaics, etc., dating from the Bronze Age to the Ottoman era, form a collection that has become a reference in view of the recent destruction.”
According to Archaeology Magazine, the current Paris exhibition originally started from a project that had been set for a show on Lebanon’s ancient site of Byblos but was unfortunately canceled due to the Israeli bombing in Beirut.
Béatrice Blandin, MAH curator, explains, “Paradoxically, being locked up in a faraway storage facility has ensured the survival of part of Khoudary’s collection,” adding that the artifacts were only awaiting authorization to return home after initially, “the majority of the items were excavated in the 1990s during Franco-Palestinian joint archaeological missions, shortly after the 1993 Oslo Accords,” according to Archaeology Magazine.
Archaeology Magazine explains, “According to [United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization] UNESCO, as of March 2025, 94 cultural and archaeological sites in Gaza have been reported damaged, including the ancient Greek port of Anthedon, the 13th-century palace of al-Basha, and the Byzantine-era al-Omari mosque,” since the Israel-Hamas war, which began on Oct. 7, 2023.
The IMA displays around a hundred artifacts, “including a 4,000-year-old bowl, a sixth-century mosaic from a Byzantine church, and a Greek-inspired statue of Aphrodite,” according to Arabnews.com.
Arabnews.com reports there is a section of the Paris exhibition that documents the extent of recent destruction in Gaza. “Using satellite image[s], the UN’s cultural agency UNESCO has already identified damage.” Bouffard explains, however, that the damage to the known sites in Gaza, as well as treasures and artifacts that are potentially hidden and unexplored in Palestine, stating, “depends on the bomb tonnage and their impact on the surface and underground… For now, it’s impossible to assess.”
“The priority is obviously human lives, not heritage,” explains Elodie Bouffard, curator of the Paris exhibition, explains. “But we also wanted to show that, for millennia, Gaza was the endpoint of caravan routes, a port that minted its own currency, and a city that thrived at the meeting point of water and sand.”
President of the Arab World Institute, Jack Lang, states on the IMA exhibition website, “Nothing is worse than abandonment and oblivion. This exhibition, which I would call a public salute, pays homage to Gaza, vibrant and wonderfully young.”