International Museum Day today is a chance to pop down to your local cultural curator. Among the Maldives resorts, the place to go is Loama Resort Maldives at Maamigili. While a number of resorts feature displays of artefacts and heritage, Maamagili has developed a sophisticated museum to showcase an unmatched collection of Maldives masterpieces…
“Loama Museum is the first and only Museum in a Hotel in Maldives licensed under the Government’s Department of Heritage. Our young museum collection spans from the Classical to British Colonial Period. Highlights include artefacts found on the island, items of trade and livelihood from the Early Modern or Colonial Period (1514-1828) and British Colonial Period ( 1828-1965). You will be wowed by an Ancient Bath from the Classical Period (500BCE-1153), Mausoleum foundations from the Medieval Islamic Period (1153-1514). The museum is located at the hotel lobby and extends to the Ancient Bath and a Traditional House which are located at the heritage site. Notable exhibits include Chinese porcelain that could have arrived on this island during the Indian Ocean trade between South East Asia and the Middle East. Other interesting artefacts from the collection, representative of the lifestyle and trade that survived inhabitants of these coral atolls for centuries in the middle of the Indian Ocean, include grain measures, coconut oil and lace making equipment.”
Many pieces in the museum come from Loama’s own archaeological work undertaken during the resort development. Anne Haour, an archaeologist from the Sainsbury Research Unit at the University of East Anglia in the UK, writes about this work in blog “Cross Roads of Empires”. She is doing a range of fascinating research studies about the Maldives and did a post on the Loama excavation work titled “Maamigili” (see below).
