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Society of the Friends of the AUB Museum
The Executive Committee
Me. Antoine Abboud
Mrs. Jacqueline Ayyoub
Mrs. Helen Badaro
Dr. Leila Badre, Museum Director
Mrs. Lina Osseiran Beydoun
Dr. Arda Ekmekji
Mrs. Nour Hakim
Mrs. Claude Issa
Mrs. Nora Jumblat, President
Mrs. Amal Saab
Mrs. Randa Smadi
Mrs. Dolly Talhame
Dr. Samir Thabet
Ms. Laila Tushan
Mr. Ziad Yamut
The Society of the Friends of the AUB Museum continues to be an active volunteer group on campus. Its members work with the museum staff to host lectures, sponsor trips to Lebanon and abroad, organize the museum’s programs for children, support the Museum Shop, and publish a newsletter. .
During the past year, the society held lectures on a broad range of topics, among them the major discovery of the temple of the Storm God Hadad at Aleppo Citadel, the recent discovery of the Petra Great Temple, the effects of the war on Mesopotamian sites and museums in Iraq, the use of DNA in tracing genetic links between ancient and modern populations, and the textiles and inscribed tiraz of the caliphs and sultans of the seventh to thirteenth centuries.
The museum-sponsored trips are extremely popular and attract a devoted and enthusiastic following. In 2004–05, trips were made to Turkey (in October 2004) and to the Egyptian oases (in February 2005). There were also a number of excursions to places closer to home: Terbol and Niha in the Bekaa, and the Cedars Forest in Barouk, for example. In November and December 2004, the society hosted two programs for children, entitled “The Adobe House of Terbol” and “The Cedar: A Tree in History.”
These activities are intended to encourage a love and appreciation of archaeology and of AUB’s own Archaeological Museum, the third-oldest museum in the Near East. |