Au Dhabi's Museums

Abu Dhabi’s universal museums- a historic perspective

January 2013

(published in a book Louvre Abu Dhabi 2013)

By Zaki Anwar Nusseibeh

Rock Art, as exemplified by the spectacular drawing of horses discovered in 1994 on the walls of the Chauvet-Pont-d'Arc Cave in the Ardeche department of southern France, is the earliest known form of human art practiced by hunters-gatherers dating back to the Paleolithic Age. Justly regarded as humanity’s first universal language, it stands as a testimony to man’s instinctive affinity to a uniquely human act of creative expression that communicates across the centuries and transcends all ethnic or cultural boundaries. 

As to be expected, Rock Art was widely practiced in the Arabian Peninsula as well where thousands of petroglyphs dating to prehistoric times were carved in the igneous dark patina rocks of the Peninsula’s mountains in different parts of modern Saudi Arabia. Several examples of such art has already been identified and recorded in professional publications over the years[1]. 

Closer to Abu Dhabi, in Al Hajar Mountains, it is believed that there are at least hundreds- if not thousands- of similar rock art examples that are thought to belong mostly to either the Iron Age, or the late pre-Islamic/ Islamic period, though some have been identified as belonging to the earlier Bronze Age as well. Those include Rock Art that can be seen today at the archeological sites of Hili, Umm an-Nar, and Bida bint Saud in the Emirate of Abu Dhabi[2].  

My favourite Abu Dhabi Rock Art has always been a panel that is 86cm wide carved on top of the south Entrance of the Hili tombs in Al Ain, dating back to the Bronze Age, that shows two upright human figures, tenderly holding each other’s hand, huddled closely together between two local Oryx.  The Hili tower, on which this panel is carved, now restored and standing in the centre of the Hili Gardens in Al Ain, was excavated by the Danish archeological team working on Jebel Hafit graves in 1964. 

Sheikh Zayed Bin Sultan 1918-2004

The story of its discovery itself is worth recounting. For it was Sheikh Zayed, the founder of the modern UAE, who was then Governor of the Eastern region who, having come across a mysterious collapsed site of ruins in that area during his daily excursions, and aware of the archeological work of the Danish archeological team in the Jebel Hafit at the time, invited two of its members in 1962 to come and examine the site. 

It is widely believed today that the Hili archeological site belongs to a civilization tied to a wider Jebel Hafit one that flourished some 5000 years ago. Clay tablets from Mesopotamian sites of the period refer to a flourishing copper trade with a land known as Magan, an ancient region that was referred to in Sumerian cuneiforms texts of around 2300 BC as a source of copper and diorite for Mesopotamia. Although the exact location of Magan is not known with certainty, most of the archeological and geological evidence suggests that it was part of what is now Oman, and must have included Al Ain area as well, known in that period for its copper smelters. The thriving trade in copper with Mesopotamia and the Indus Valley could have been carried out via the desert route to Umm Al Nar, another of Abu Dhabi’s major archeological sites closer to the Island of Abu Dhabi[3].

The Rock Art of the Hili site in Al Ain contains other figures that include two Arabian leopards with long tails devouring a baby gazelle, as well as two other human figures that seem to be enjoying a more intimate kind of embrace that adorns the northern entrance of the Hili grand tomb. Copies of these examples of Bronze age Emirati Rock Art can be viewed today at the Al Ain National Archeological Museum, opened by the late Sheikh Zayed Bin Sultan in 1969, a task he wished to see completed before he had the time or sufficient resources to start building the modern state that the world recognizes today as a leading country in the region.

The fact that Sheikh Zayed, who had become the Ruler of the Emirate of Abu Dhabi only in August 1966, thought of opening an archeological and anthropological museum in his country so early in his reign, stating at the time that such a forward looking cultural project was a priority social and development imperative for his nation, was a momentous testament to his far reaching vision as a historic leader who could think clearly ahead for the future of his land and its people.  

Abu Dhabi had emerged in the aftermaths of the great world depression of the thirties and the development soon after of cultured pearls in Japan as a disadvantaged emirate that stood in urgent need for the basic urban, social, economic and political infrastructures that it sourly lacked. Though oil was discovered in Abu Dhabi in 1959 the Emirate did not have in 1966 the housing, schools, hospitals, roads, electricity or running water that could provide its people with the basic amenities of modern life. Sheikh Zayed of course was well aware of the urgency of modernizing his state, having worked as the Ruler’s representative in the Eastern Region before where he was able to develop Al Ain and perform some remarkable feats of agricultural reforms there with minimal financial resources.

Abu Dhabi’s major problems in 1966 were not merely developmental. In addition to its lack of fundamental infrastructures that included an effective police force or army this Emirate, together with the other states of the Gulf, had to face in 1968 the severe security and political challenges of a precipitous announcement by Britain of their plans to withdraw from the Gulf by 1971, leaving behind, as extensively reported in the period's Arab and international media at the time, a potentially hazardous power vacuum in a region that was seething with regional and local disputes and armed conflicts[4]. 

It was fortunate for the Gulf region at this critical juncture of its history that Sheikh Zayed was a providential historic figure for those turbulent years, an exceptional leader of outstanding charisma and qualities uniquely qualified to cope with the awesome challenges that threatened the stability of the region as well as the well being of his people. Though born at the turn of the twentieth century in an isolated part of the world, with little formal education or training, he was in every way ahead of his times- a true Renaissance man of the century who knew how to lead his people peacefully through a mind-boggling transition in unsettled and perilous circumstances. 

His legacy included the spectacular feat of bringing seven disparate emirates caught by the turbulent regional political and social upheavals of the sixties and seventies into a strong federation that was destined to play a major stabilizing role both in the region and the world.  Wisely utilizing the income from a newly found wealth to invest in the rapid modernization of his own country, he was able, with the cooperation of his fellow Rulers, to turn the small fishing and pearling villages along the coast with their clusters of oases in the interior into a major success story in modern nation building. 

The seven emirates that came together to establish a new federation in 1971, long used to a subsistence economy that depended on pearling, herding, and date growing, with some active commerce centered around its coastal cities with a trading tradition such as Dubai, were soon transformed into one of the major political, financial and economic power centers in the world, and came to occupy an important strategic position in the Gulf as a vital link between world economic regions.

Education

Sheikh Zayed's first priority in 1966 though was to focus on the need to invest in its most valuable asset, its people.  Education, as he said in one of his earliest public statements, is the key to the future; our real wealth is the knowledge that we can make available to our young generations.  It is hard to imagine today that Abu Dhabi in the school year 1960-61 had a total of only eighty-one students in all attending two schools in the Emirate[5] (as opposed to just under half a million students today in 489 schools), or that illiteracy was widespread in the land (90.13% in 1968 as opposed to 6.13 % today). 

His commitment to education was versed in an ancient Arab and Muslim tradition that was part of his self-taught philosophy culled from his avid reading of the classical Arabic heritage. The first modern University, he used to say, was Arab.[6] One of the first global museums of the world was the famed Museum of Alexandria Library in 280BC[7]. Arab and Moslem scholars once carried the torch of learning and knowledge for the entire world to benefit from. We have the means and the moral obligation today to reproduce in our own land with our newly found wealth the rich tradition of excellence and scholarship bequeathed to us by our ancestors.[8]

To achieve his objective, Sheikh Zayed set out on a massive programme of building schools (and soon after universities and technical colleges) at all levels, not only decreeing that education should be free for all (national and expatriate), but actually making his Government pay stipends to the national families of each potential pupil so as to encourage them to send their children- both boys and girls, to the state's burgeoning education system. In addition he decreed the launching of a massive literacy campaign to target the elderly- particularly Emirati women who he believed must be co-opted into his vision for the development of his nation. 

The National Museum of Al Ain 1969

It was as part of this broad educational strategy that Sheikh Zayed also decreed the building of an archeological and anthropological museum in Al Ain which he saw as an essential stepping stone to the society of knowledge he wished to see flourish in Abu Dhabi. For Sheikh Zayed, such a museum was an indispensable part of a colossal task that he took upon himself to lay down the physical foundations for the durable social, economic, and political development of his country.  The museum itself was thus a symbol and a catalyst for his grand vision for bringing his young nation to embrace with open hearts the process of rapid modernization while remaining firmly anchored to its heritage and past.

The museum also became in time a fine testimony to the great value he attributed to a humanist world view that saw his country and region as an integral part of a universal civilization, one that shared common values and aspirations with all the other nations of the world regardless of race or creed or language. His humanist cultural vision based on his belief that all men across the ages were brothers and kinsmen who share a universal patrimony and are called upon to work together to improve their common destiny was a central backdrop to his driving ambition to build the new physical Abu Dhabi. It also underpinned his efforts to lay the foundations for a stable political federation with enhanced and new regional and international relations that could contribute to the stability and security of this strategic part of the world.  

Sheikh Zayed believed that for a country like the UAE, one that was about to witness a momentous adventure that heralded a swift transition of a whole society unparalleled in modern human experience, there is the danger of not paying enough attention to the past and thus neglecting his people’s rich history with its ancient mores, customs and traditions. Rapid modernization, though it can bring to his society the much-needed amenities of a comfortable and dignified life, can also pose a threat to his people's cultural identity. A people without a thorough knowledge of its historic roots, and of its true place in the grand scheme of human civilization over the centuries, he said, could never feel really at ease in its present or future evolution. [9]

He also believed that as a small nation faced by major security challenges Abu Dhabi must continue to build bridges to the rest of the world, creating Arab and international partnerships, alliances, and friendships that can best support its bid for security, progress and modernization. These links could not be based on purely economic, financial or commercial ties, important as they were in international relations. They must in addition be underpinned by shared moral values and aspirations. Asserting its own national identity with its rich traditions and heritage the UAE must also work therefore for bringing cultures and civilizations closer together through an active policy of dialogue and exchange of ideas with the rest of the world.[10]

Given the harsh physical environment of the Emirates, its lack of extensive human settlement, its absence of great monuments of the past, and its paucity of resources in the early parts of the twentieth century, many outside Abu Dhabi- but including some of today’s young UAE nationals- could easily fall into the trap of identifying the country only with its newly found oil wealth that led to its rapid rise to global prominence in the last few decades.

Yet archeological research had shown that the country, despite its small size, had much to offer in the past. The region itself was a vital stepping-stone over 200,000 years ago on the migration path of early man out of Africa into Asia[11], and its inhabitants were engaged less than 8000 years ago in trade by sea with Mesopotamia and the Indus valley. They initiated a thriving pearling industry that traded with Venice and the Italian City States of the fifteenth century, an active commerce that lasted into the first part of the twentieth century. [12]

Sheikh Zayed was keen to make his people conscious of the archeological sites that he helped discover in Abu Dhabi, and he was aware of their deep significance for his vision for the future of his country. He was a regular visitor in the fifties and early sixties to the newly discovered archeological site of Umm an-Nar, a small island off the coast of Abu Dhabi where his father had built a water cistern to gather rainwater. It was on this small island that the remains of a third millennium BC settlement and a cemetery of fifty collective graves were first excavated in 1958 by the Danish team working in Bahrain[13].  The excavations showed, unfortunately, a systemic plundering of the site's artifacts as well as the destruction of its stone figures.  Hence Sheikh Zayed’s early awareness that this wealth must be preserved and protected for future generations. 

The treasures that were subsequently found on the site included canister jars of grey ware, alabaster bowls, golden hair pins and other examples of pottery ware that would tell a fascinating story of the important role its community of Emiratis played in its golden era, and the strong links they had to the wider Mesopotamian civilization of the time[14]. Umm An Nar was an important part of a wider civilization that constituted an ancient network of cultures that stretched from the Mediterranean to the Indus Valley.  And Sheikh Zayed felt that it was important to provide a museum to tell this story.

Sheikh Zayed’s prescient decision to build this primal universal national museum in Al Ain in 1969 at such an early stage of his country’s development informs and inspires the great cultural vision of today’s leadership in Abu Dhabi as it primes the country to play a significant role in today's global economy.

The Abu Dhabi leadership that took over the reins of Government in 2004 with the passing away of its founding father developed an ambitious and far-reaching plan to move ahead with the UAE from its founding years into a new phase of consolidation and growth.  Once again the central focus of its strategy was related to the need to provide its population with the necessary knowledge tools for facing the awesome set of new economic and security challenges of the twenty first century. 

Abu Dhabi's 2030 Vision

In 2006 Abu Dhabi’s Council for Economic Development and the Department of Planning and Economy in Abu Dhabi were mandated “to develop a durable economic vision for the Emirate that would facilitate the creation of a long-term roadmap through the establishment of a common framework aligning all policies and plans and fully engaging the private sector in their implementation”[15].

An Abu Dhabi Policy Agenda published in 2007/2008 defined priorities for public policy in the Emirate set to achieve Abu Dhabi’s primary goals for ensuring a safe and secure society with a dynamic, open economy. It identified nine pillars that were to serve as the framework for Abu Dhabi’s social, political and economic future. They included “a large empowered private sector, a substantial knowledge-based economy, an optimal regulatory environment, strong international relationships, optimization of resources, premium education, healthcare and infrastructure security, and the optimal management of Abu Dhabi’s values, culture and heritage.”[16]

Abu Dhabi’s vision for the new era thus was to create a highly competitive economy and to project the Emirate on the international stage as an open, culturally rich country for people to live and work in and an outstanding destination for investors and tourists. More importantly, it was to provide the environment to educate and train its young people so that they are qualified to face the challenges of the 21st century. 

As part of its global strategy the Abu Dhabi Government mandated the newly structured cultural authorities of the Emirate to embark on a unique cultural journey that balances Abu Dhabi’s rich and ancient heritage and values as an Islamic and Arab country with a global cultural outlook that embraces the world. Amongst the rich array of wide-ranging cultural projects that were to define Abu Dhabi’s new vision stand the internationally acclaimed Universal museums project on Saadiyat Island at the heart of its cultural strategy. 

Abu Dhabi’s cultural mission as envisioned in its initial strategic plans was in effect far-reaching and ambitious.[17] Managed by Abu Dhabi’s Authority for Tourism and Culture, it is based on the belief that cultural issues are critically important for development.  Culture forms an integral part of our lives, and Abu Dhabi’s plan for long term, sustainable economic development is focussed on bringing it into alignment with that of culture. Its goal is the educational and creative growth of its population.  

The cultural mandate was thus focused on creating and promoting the environment in which literature, music and the arts, seen as transcendent means of expressing one’s culture and encouraging dialogue across borders in a tolerant, free and engaging way, can develop and thrive. Because Abu Dhabi was witnessing unprecedented development, growth and prosperity, a truly successful cultural mission had to preserve the country’s national identity and cultural values while it seeks to enrich tomorrow’s cultural environment and reach out to the world.

Abu Dhabi’s cultural objectives as mandated by the Government included encouraging creativity in culture and arts, formulating and implementing cultural heritage policies, plans and projects, organizing and sponsoring exhibitions, conferences, workshops and events related to culture and heritage, preserving, managing, and conserving archeological and historical sites, promoting education and training in culture and heritage, developing the national professional skills needed to do this, and, most importantly, establishing and managing world class museums that will serve the longer term plans for the development of the country. [18]

Closely related to this cultural strategy, Abu Dhabi had begun building as part of its 2030 vision another important foundation to respond to its long-term development plans— Education. New model Schools were founded, global performance standards imposed, a world class web of Research Centers and Universities established that included The Paris Sorbonne University of Abu Dhabi, the New York University, the Imperial College Research & Diabetes Hospital – all aimed at creating the community of knowledge for tomorrow’s world. 

Saadiyat Island and its Cultural District

Early in its development strategy Abu Dhabi Government identified Saadiyat Island as the ideal setting for a world-class tourist resort and an urban development project for its rapidly growing population. The official launching of the Saadiyat Cultural District on the Island in 2006 as the crown jewel of Abu Dhabi's cultural vision gave the signal for the future development there of the world's largest single concentration of world-class universal cultural and educational institutions in the region, one that will respond to Abu Dhabi's wide-ranging cultural strategy.

Future home to the Louvre Museum of Abu Dhabi, the Sheikh Zayed National Museum, and the Guggenheim Abu Dhabi Museum, as well as other museums, performing arts centres and pavilions, in addition to first-rate schools and the New York University of Abu Dhabi, its mission was defined as providing an international platform for arts and culture in the UAE and to stand as a beacon to the region and the world.  

The cultural district was designed by TDIC with the need to provide a variety of unique and compelling cultural experiences for residents and tourists, and to establish the highest international standards that would define the island’s development. Becoming a world-class cultural centre was integral to the overall strategy of the Government, but it had to be a centre that will be highly regarded on a global scale – inclusive in appeal rather than exclusive. To accomplish this each institution had to embrace not only a local but also a universal and global cultural content.

To become a cultural destination – a place that, by definition, people interested in culture want to visit more than once and hold in the greatest regard – the Cultural District had to assemble a cluster of institutions that is unique and extraordinary. It was clear that the architecture of these museums could, in itself, be something of a vision statement and TDIC engaged the very best in the world for the concept designs. Frank Gehry for the Guggenheim Abu Dhabi, Jean Novel for the Louvre Abu Dhabi, and Norman Foster for the Sheikh Zayed National Museum. 

TCA, the Abu Dhabi Authority for Tourism and Culture views these great institutions as a necessity for the durable development of the country. It sought the best international partnerships to gain the experience and expertise needed to fulfill its mission. Its aim is to provide training and education for its own young nationals- an investment across generations, and it views its cultural plans as much about Abu Dhabi’s own heritage and identity as the world’s. 

For many Emiratis the Saadiyat Cultural District with its universal museums will bring further education and learning. It will lead to the development of skills that will be transferable to the workplace, enhanced career prospects, increased creativity and greater appreciation of artistic activities. Abu Dhabi’s universal museums are aimed at fostering creativity for its rising generations while enhancing the working conditions and opportunities of local, national and regional creative communities.

The Political Context

It is important to point out that the cultural strategy underpinning the development of these projects was from the outset sensitive to today’s political context. For the UAE to become a highly regarded international presence on the cultural and educational front its overall cultural and educational project must reflect, complement and advance the policies and political objectives that the Emirate’s leadership envisions for the state and its people.

Those objectives are rooted in the conviction that Abu Dhabi, occupying a geographically central axis at the crossroads of continents and regions, must continue to play an international role that seeks to build bridges to the world in order to strengthen its own presence and security, and as its own contribution to regional and international peace and stability. This is particularly relevant in a new global environment where political or economic power alone is no longer sufficient for ensuring those goals. 

Abu Dhabi and its Universal Museums

When Abu Dhabi’s ambitious projects for the establishment of the region's universal museums on Saadiyat Island were first announced to the world there was a mixed and clamorous worldwide reaction that conveyed, in different doses, feelings of awe, admiration, consternation, and sometimes-overt cynicism, prejudice or hostility. 

Negative comments included those related to the Louvre's daring plans to expand its experiences both locally and internationally[19]. Others echoed the objections raised to the original Declaration of Universal Museums of December 2002, claiming that the Abu Dhabi Louvre will merely serve as a repository of “looted” Pharaonic treasures, a travesty of the actual Universalist vision of the Abu Dhabi Louvre as explained fully in other articles in this publication. Some comments pretended that the idea of a public museum is a European concept of the nineteenth century, unsuitable to today's (condescendingly implying Arab) world.

Yet the building of new museums is a central plank of the development strategies today of many Governments both in the Middle East and the world. The Gulf region itself is witnessing an unprecedented boom in the founding of new cultural institutions. The rapidly expanding Art scene in the surrounding region in India, Pakistan, China, Russia, and the central Republics of Asia (to pick a few examples) as well the rising importance of new economic superpowers on the global stage has imposed upon a traditional Western- centric view of art and civilisation a new awareness of cultural developments in other regions of the world as seen and narrated by their own peoples- not only as historically interpreted through a Western perspective. 

In fact, far from being a nineteenth century experience, perhaps amongst the most significant of cultural events in the late twentieth century was the "growth of new museum activity, with 90% of the world’s museums established after World War II, more than ? of English museums established after 1970”[20]. There is little doubt that the opening of the Pompidou centre in Paris in 1977 represented a dramatic shift in museum design and image in contemporary cultural life. As recently as 1978 the city of Frankfurt decided to change its image from a mere financial centre into a renewed urban landscape with strategically placed new cultural institutions, becoming, in the process " a city of 500,000 .....that more than any other European city not previously a cultural centre came to influence through political will other non-capital European cities to invest in culture, and in particular in museums”.[21] Bilbao is of course another example for a universal museum that influences the long-term development of a whole region.

In time the wide- reaching project of Abu Dhabi's Universal museums was gradually understood and recognized by the international community as a daring but vitally significant landmark that will help in projecting the Gulf region and its geographical sphere not merely as an oil reservoir or financial powerhouse but also as an important and fast growing component of a global cultural revolution that is bringing different parts of the world closer together. 

Perspective

One final observation might be of direct relevance to this perspective. Sheikh Zayed's prescient vision of more than half a century ago to build the primal universal museum of the country in 1969 found a resounding valediction in two major exhibitions that were organized by Abu Dhabi’s Tourism and Culture Authority recently in collaboration with the British Museum on Manarat al Saadiyat that best describe the very concept of Universal Museums that Abu Dhabi is building today on Saadiyat Island.[22]

 The first exhibition, the "Splendours of Mesopotamia”, which was held in March 2011 and showcased many of the treasures from Abu Dhabi’s national collection and from the British Museum had as its objective the presentation of “one of the first and greatest ancient human civilizations of mankind.. bringing into light the interconnected ties of Gulf societies......to the development of one of the world's finest civilizations that radically changed at the time the way human beings lived and thought” [23]. The exhibition underlined the fact that the discovery of the major archeological sites in the UAE, "in which the late Sheikh Zayed was instrumental, fundamentally rewrote the history of the region and its connections to the wider world”[24].

The second exhibition, the "Treasures of the world's cultures” organized in the same place in July 2012, was aimed at bringing into focus the cultural achievement of mankind over two million years.[25] While the Splendours of Mesopotamia gave prominence to the Middle East as the birthplace of civilization and to the ancient history of the Gulf region as an active part of mankind's journey of life, the new exhibition extended the quest "to the wider horizon of world heritage providing a universal context for the story of the peoples of the United Arab Emirates and the Middle East as part of the broad sweep of human civilization".[26]

Viewed in this historical perspective, Abu Dhabi's universal museums on Saadiyat Island will, it is hoped, bring a better understanding of the common roots of man’s remarkable journey across the centuries. Acting as a symbolic shared space for cultural differences and similarities to be experienced and understood by a regional and international public, it can advance understanding between nations by bringing cultures and civilisations closer together, the only ready path for circumventing the perils of a conflict of civilisations based on the ignorance and misunderstanding of the other. 

In addition to consolidating the UAE's growing cultural and educational presence, Abu Dhabi's museum signals the commitment of Abu Dhabi's leadership to the same far-reaching vision that inspired the emergence of the United Arab Emirates in 1971 from difficult and trying beginnings to become in record time a leading regional and international player.

[1] Anati, E. Rock Art in Central Arabia, Published by the Institut Orientaliste, Louvain-La-Neuve, four volumes 1968

[2] Tikriti, Walid Yasin Al-, Rock Art in Abu Dhabi Emirate,  ADACH, 2011

[3] Peter Hellyer and Rosalind Buckton Al Ain Oasis City, Motivate Publishing 1998

[4] “The Emirates in the Eyes of the world 1971” Zaki Nusseibeh, in “New Perspectives on Recording UAE History”, National Centre for Documentation and Research, Abu Dhabi 2009

[5] K G Fenelon The United Arab Emirates An Economic and Social Srvey, Longman 1973

[6] the 9th century University of Qairawan in Fez

[7] Sheikh Zayed was with President Mitterrand one of the major patrons of the New Library of Alexandria built on the site of the old one and donated generously to its construction costs.

[8] Personal notes in Ruler’s Majlis recorded by Author

[9] Personal notes  in Ruler’s Majlis recorded by Author

[10] Personal notes  in Ruler’s Majlis recorded by Author

[11] Potts, D.T. In the Land of the Emirates, the Archeology and History of the United Arab Emirates, Trident Press 2012.

[12] the first European traveler to come in contact with the Gulf region and describe its thriving pearl industry from Italy was a diarist and aristocrat from Bologna, Ludivico di Varthema, who passed through the Gulf region in 1480. A Venetian court jeweler, Gasparo Balbi, visited the Emirates later in 1580 to inspect its famous pearl markets, and he provided a comprehensive list of places inhabited by pearl fishers or visited by them during the pearling season in the Gulf region that included Abu Dhabi’s Islands of Sir Bani Yas, Zirku, Qarnein, Das and Dalma, as well as the coastal settlements of Dubai, Sharjah, Ajman, Umm al-Quwein and Ras al- Khaimah.

[13] Potts, D. T. In the land of the Emirates, the Archeology and History of the UAE, co-published Trident Press, 2012

[14] Karen Frifelt The island of Umm An-Nar Volume I Third Millennium Graves, Jutland Archeological Society Publications XXVI:1, 1991

[15] “The Abu Dhabi Economic Vision 2030”, The Government of Abu Dhabi, November 2008

[16] The Abu Dhabi Economic Vision 2030”, The Government of Abu Dhabi, November 2008

[17] The information in this and in the following section was referenced in different ADACH & TDIC Strategy Papers

[18] ADACH strategy paper 2008

[19] The spectacular opening of the islamic Pavillion at the Louvre Paris and the inauguration of  the Louvre Lens last year underlined the museum's pioneering vision in taking its universal message to new domains.

[20] Gorden Fyfe,  in “A Companion to Museum Studies”, edited by Sharon Macdonald, Wily-Blackwell 2011.

[21] Ian Richtie: An Architects view of recent developments in European museums, “Museum Studies An Anthology of Contexts”, Second Edition, edited by Bettina Messias Carbonell, Wiley-Blackwell 2012.

[22] “Universal museums such as the British museum, at their very best embody the enlightenment belief that we can all talk about, and to one another across our cultural boundaries, that we need to find new, and better, ways of doing so than hitherto; and that if we do, we shall discover how much unites us” Neil MacGregor

[23] Neil MacGregor, Splendours of Mesopotamia, TDIC publications 2011, Abu Dhabi

[24] Neil MacGregor, Splendours of Mesopotamia, TDIC publications 2011, Abu Dhabi

[25] Sultan Bin Tahnoun, Preface to Treasures of the World's Cultures, TCA publication 2012 Abu Dhabi

[26] Neil MacGregor, preface Treasures of the World's Cultures, TCA 2012