Welcome to the Dubai Museum in Al Fahidi Fort

Commercial Life
The museum's realistic lifesize static displays provide an insight into the traditional occupants of Dubai. Those have included dhow building, fishing, pearl diving and trade. Indeed, the export of fine pearls was a major factor in Dubai's rise to prominence as a trading centre.The Creek has always been the lifeline of Dubai, providing a safe harbour to mercantile and fishing vessels, as it does even today. Visitors to the museum can view a splendid diorama depicting the old charm and bustle of commercial life along the banks of this fabled waterway.Souks have been often referred to as the real heart of Arabia, and nowhere is this more true than in Dubai. The city's famous souks have, since the late 19th century, attached merchants and traders from as far afield as India, Iran, the eastern coast of Africa and beyond. At the museum, you can experience all the atmosphere of a soul in the 1950s, as you stroll through a labyrinth of spice stores, pottery and carpentry workshops and rows of shops, including tailors, grocers, textile merchants and date-sellers.Domestic Life
Traditional Dubai houses are considered to be among the finest examples of Gulf architecture. The earliest houses were constructed with humble building materials, including the leaves and trunks of palm trees (areesh), rocks and earthen clay. As flourishing pearl trade brought greater prosperity in the latter half of the last century, however, these gave away to houses built of stone and adorned with magnificent wind towers, the world's earliest form of air conditioning.