Bait Al Zubair Museum

Bait Al Zubair Museum is a privately run museum of Omani heritage on Al Saidiya Street in Old Muscat, housed in a restored family home and its grounds. The collection covers traditional Omani life through khanjar daggers, silver jewellery, costumes, weapons, household items, coins and documents, and scale models of historic buildings and forts. A garden area holds replicas of traditional village houses, which help show regional building styles from the coast, mountains and desert interior. Labelled displays are in Arabic and English, and the museum has a small shop and cafe. The museum is typically open Saturday to Thursday from about 9:30AM to 5:30PM and closed on Fridays, with an entry fee of about OMR 3. Visitors usually spend about one and a half hours. Mid-morning is a comfortable time to visit, before heat and school or tour groups peak. The khanjar and jewellery rooms are the most-visited sections, and the garden provides good photo opportunities among the model houses. Photography rules vary inside the galleries, so staff instructions apply. The museum is within a short walk of the National Museum of Oman and a taxi from Muttrah takes about 10 minutes, making it an easy addition to an Old Muscat route that includes Al Alam Palace and the forts. It offers a more intimate and cooler counterpart to the larger state museum and is well suited to visitors interested in traditional crafts and costume.