Ancient Treasures from Gaza on Display in Paris at Institute du Monde Arabe

PARIS (06-26) While the genocide taking place in Gaza is constantly in the news, the history of Gaza as an historical crossroads of civilization has been overlooked and little-appreciated even before the horrific circumstances that exist there today.

As a war-torn enclave now almost completely leveled, the patrimony of its history has been the subject of archaeologists and others in their race against war to save its legacy before it is completely erased through Israel’s constant bombing, killings and destruction.

Trésors Sauvés de Gaza - 5000 ans d'histoire, currently at the Insitut du Monde Arabe (l’IMA) until November, is an important look at the rich historical record of Gaza as an ancient land whose archaeological sites today are being reduced to rubble along with much of the coastal enclave. The 130 masterpieces on display in this exhibition cover a period of 5,000 years spanning the Bronze Age (3300 BCE) to the Ottoman occupation which lasted until 1917 in World War I. Also included are artifacts from the Iron Age, Phillistine, Assyrian, Persian, Hellenistic, Roman, Byzantine and Muslim eras. The exhibit contextualizes Gaza’s importance as an ancient crossroads between numerous civilizations, people and religions.

The exhibition was made possible through the collaboration of the Geneva Museum of Art and History (MAH) with the support of the Palestinian National Authority and is the first time these treasures have been exhibited in France.

Included in the first part of the exhibition, Gaza, 5000 ans d’Histoire, are architectural elements, amphora, oil lamps, statues, coins, funerary objects, and a massive Byzantine mosaic. Some of the objects were uncovered during the 1995 Franco-Palestinian excavations in Gaza, while others are from the MAH collection including the Byzantine mosaic masterpiece of Abu Baraqeh (579 CE).

Many of the objects are from the private collection of Gazan Jawdat Khoudary, who in 2018 donated them to the Palestinian National Authority for inclusion in a proposed future museum.

Khoudary, who made his personal fortune in the construction business, began collecting artifacts as his workers uncovered them during excavation on projects, along with those which he purchased from Gaza’s fishermen who captured them from the sea in their nets.

One masterpiece which Khoudary purchased from two fishermen is an elegantly carved small Hellenistic or Roman marble statue of Aphrodite or Hecate who is portrayed leaning on a herm while to her right are the fragments of a missing Pan’s hooves.

After signing an agreement with the City of Geneva in 2005, the Khoudary collection in 2007 was first exhibited there as Gaza at the Crossroads of Civilizations. At the conclusion of the exhibition, the artifacts were stored in the Geneva Freeport’s warehouse until they were moved to Paris for the present exhibition.

With Israel’s invasion of Gaza in 2023, a concerted effort of “cultural cleansing” has been undertaken by its military to erase any vestiges of Gaza’s patrimony. Among its causalities was Khoudary’s extensive collection, garden and home in Gaza City, along with other archaeological museums and sites, and the bombing of historic churches and mosques.

In a 2024 article in Geneva Solutions, a non-profit news platform, Khoudary was quoted as saying that Israel’s rampant destruction purportedly for “security reasons,” is “…only to destroy.”
The same article quotes the UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) as saying that “as of March 2025, it has verified damage to 94 cultural and archaeological sites, including 12 religious sites, 62 buildings of historical and/or artistic interest, three depositories of movable cultural property, nine monuments, one museum and seven archeological sites.”
Fortunately, the masterpieces on display from the Geneva collection are now beyond the reach of those destructive forces and can be viewed and enjoyed while telling the story of 5,000 years of Gazan history.

In the exhibition’s second section, Un patrimoine en peril, the subject of damage and destruction of Gaza’s patrimony is displayed showing before and after photographs of important sites along with satellite images and maps depicting the extent and thoroughness inflicted on the archaeological record while also denoting the damage done to UNESCO World Heritage sites within Gaza.

Another section addressing the “urgent challenges of heritage…in times of war” presents an assessment of the present state of recent archaeological discoveries and strategies for their preservation.
And finally, a collection of historic black and white photographs of Gaza circa 1905-1922 from the l’Ecole biblique archéologique de Jerusalem collection shows what the area once looked in that era.
The exhibition stands as a de facto reminder that Gaza and Gazans share a long and proud history and that, regardless of the ravages they are now suffering and will suffer in the future, their patrimony will survive.
Report and photos by Phil Pasquini

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