Ethnography Museum Interior (2009)Morphe
Founded in May 2009 by the Archeology and Museology department at the UOB, the Ethnography Museum first started as a temporary exhibition housing ethnographic items generously donated by local families and later became a museum with growing collection of around 750 artifacts.
It was officially registered as the "University of Balamand Ethnography Museum" at the International Council of Museums in Jan. 2015.
The exhibited items range between the end of the 18th to the mid-20th century and reflect local Lebanese traditions and practices from that period.
Let us now explore the museum and see the different parts of elementary houses between the late 19th and the early 20th century.
The tour will guide us from the sitting room, to the weaving and sewing area, the kitchen and cooking;
Passing by the urban and rural bedrooms. It will be followed by a glance at farming and goldsmith work.
Sitting RoomMorphe
Sitting room
Hospitality is a cultural tradition that is deeply rooted in our region. Hosts always take pride in welcoming friends and neighbors into their house. Coffee, refreshments, fruits and sweets were generously offered to the guests while they would be seated on sofas.
BedroomsMorphe
Bedrooms: Urban and Rural
Similarly to what bedrooms looked like in Europe, a local urban bedroom from the end of the 19th century till the early mid-20th century would have a cast iron bed with a chest of drawers and a mirror mounted on the wall.
Urban BedroomMorphe
Curtains and bed covers would often have matching textiles, and the room would have a bathing apparatus on a wash-stand, a wardrobe and toilet articles.
On the other hand, in rural houses, a sitting room would double in winter as a bedroom, while the terrace would serve that role in summer.
Spinning, Sewing, and WeavingMorphe
Spinning, Sewing, and Weaving
The use of spinning tools and looms is attested from 3400 B.C and silk spinning started around 2600 B.C.
Spinning Wheel by UnknownMorphe
Spinning Wheel
At first, the hand spinning method used a spindle whorl, which required the teasing of lumps of fibers then twisting them into strings around spindles.
Textiles made of cotton, wool, silk and linen were at first an individual production to meet personal needs. Then, when the production exceeded the consumption needs, it became industrial.
The first sewing machine
It was invented in 1830 by the French tailor Barthelemy Thimonniern. In 1850, Isaac Singer built the first commercially successful machine that used the up-and-down motion mechanism. The museum’s five sewing machines are all manufactured by Singer.
Jacquard Loom by UnknownMorphe
Once the threads were ready to be used, fabrics were created on a loom by using two separate sets of yarn (the warp and the weft).
The warp runs the length of the fabrics. Its strands are systematically moved up and down creating a sort of grid that holds all the strands together.
The weft is a separate yarn that goes back and forth across the width of the fabric.
KitchenMorphe
Kitchen
The kitchen has been the most vital part of the house, even though it was not always limited to a specific set of four walls. Houses in the Near East followed the basic style: a single general-purpose room, with the cooking indoor space, with open or covered stoves.
Kitchen tools - miscellaneousMorphe
Under the influence of the Ottoman style, rooms hosting the kitchen, the sitting area and the bedroom were all interchangeable, each room’s convenience changing according to the season and weather.
Farming ToolsMorphe
Farming
One of the processes of agriculture is the plowing that consists of loosening and turning the soil via a farming tool called a plow, a wooden frame equipped with a fitted blade designed to cut and unpack earth through a traction driven by human or animal muscular strength.
The plow allows sowing to take place by bringing fresh nutrients from the deep layers to the surface and by burying weeds and compostable remains to decay. It also evens the content of the upper layers where the roots grow, thus improving the overall cultivated plant development
GoldsmithMorphe
Goldsmith
Gold was imported to Lebanon from Nubia, the Red Sea, the mountains of Armenia and the Iranian highlands. The oldest known testimony dates back to the 2nd millennium B.C. and was discovered in Byblos, in a funeral context.
Goldsmith toolsMorphe
Goldsmith Tools
The working techniques were enriched with time, reaching an accomplished level under the Arabs. The Mamluks influenced the Ottomans. The adornments constituted a transmissible heritage, available in times of crisis;
Silver was more common, with gold going to the elites.
Rural jewelry was simple, often in the form of coins.
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Ethnography Museum Virtual Tour
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