Inauguration of Khalifa House Community Museum……the rich with the historical sites

Khartoum:Haffiya Elyas

The Khalifa House Museum is an ethnographic museum managed by Sudan’s National Corporation for Antiquities and Museums (NCAM), located within the historical area of Omdurman opposite the Mahdi’s tomb. It was the residence of the successor of the Mahdi, Khalifa Abdallahi ibn Muhammad and the headquarters of the administration of the Mahdi State. The House was converted into a museum in 1928.

The Khalifa House Community Museum was inaugurated today , in the presence of the Minister of Culture and Information, the Wali of Khartoum State, and honoring the family of Caliph Abdullah Al-Taayshi and a number of diplomats at the British Embassy and the British Council in an official festive atmosphere.

Dr. Graham Abdel Qader, Minister of Culture and Information, said that the year 2023 is the year of museums, as today the Khalifa Community House Museum was opened, and soon the National Museum, the Darfur Museum and Shikan will be opened, and the ethnography museum will also be rehabilitated.

Ahmed Osman Hamza, Wali of Khartoum State, stressed the state’s keenness to preserve the Khalifa House Museum and its surrounding antiquities, such as the Abdul Gayoom Gate, the Caliph’s Monsters and the Imam Mahdi Dome to be a bright tourist interface to attract tourists and preserve heritage.

It is worth noting that the Khalifa House dates from 1888-91 and is a low, one and two-storied building linked by courtyards. Its traditional mud-brick structure is of great historical importance, since it exhibits the style and architecture prevailing at the period. The Khalifa House Museum contains artefacts relating to the Mahdiyah rule during the last two decades of the nineteenth century such as suits of mail, Mahdist coins, flimsy banknotes issued by Gordon during the Siege of Khartoum, swords and personal belongings of the Khalifa. Further to this is an Arrol-Johnston motor vehicle, that was the first car in Sudan, first all-terrain vehicle in the world and now one of eight left in the world.

For 2018-21 the Khalifa House Museum has been part of the Western Sudan Community Museums project, resulting in the restoration of the building, staff training in material conservation and collection management, storage and protection of the displays and development of new displays.

Sudan Memory has collaborated with the WSCM project since 2018 providing equipment and training to enable the recording and cataloguing of the Khalifa House Museum collection.