Description:

The Lebanese village Haqel (meaning “field”) lies in the highlands of the district of Jbeil (Byblos), 650 meters above sea level and 57 Km away from Beirut. Its population consists of 400 people, most of whom work and live in the city during the winter, and go back to their hometown to spend the summer vacation. A road, lined by village houses on both sides, crosses the welcoming and clean Haqel.

Birth of the Museum

In the heart of Haqel, Rizkallah Nohra, a local, has founded, with a modest capital, the first museum of fossilized fish in Lebanon. The whole adventure began in 1970 when Nohra, a seven year-old boy back then, started to gather some stones with peculiar designs and engravings, from a piece of land owned by his family in Haqel.  This hobby became more of a passion as years went by. But Nohra did not realize that a treasure was hidden in his hometown until some historians, scientists and geologists visited the village and assessed the scientific value of these 100 million year-old fossils. This evidence encouraged Nohra to pursue digging even more using very rudimentary and conventional tools in order to enrich his fossil collection of fish, plants, shells, snakes, and crustaceans.

However, Nohra always had a dream which he wanted to come true; to create an international standard museum. Unfortunately, such project didn’t’ see the light yet due to his small resources and lack of support from the government.  Undeterred by such obstacles, Nohra started to restore, on his own, a typical old Lebanese village house where he could gather and display all the fossils he had collected over the past twenty years. 1991 witnessed the opening of the first natural history museum for marine fossils. The museum was later qualified by geologists and scientists as one of the most important in the world for its collection of the most  rare specimen of all kinds of fish fossils.

Origins and Discovery 

The first serious study of the existence of fossilized fish in Lebanon, especially in Haqel, was done by a French Scientist in the 19^th century. Many speculations and suggestions have subsequently arisen as to the existence of the fish in the mountain rather than in a cave or mine. One explanation is that millions of years ago, the Mediterranean Sea covered most of the Lebanese territory, denoted in the existence of fossilized shells in the mountains and highlands such as Dahr El Baydar. The second explanation would be the eruption of the most violent earthquake in world history, which crossed the lands of Anadol all the way to Madagascar Island, and given rise to the Bekaa Valley as well as the Eastern and Western mountain chains.  

Today, Haqel is a renowned tourist attraction and research center for experts in the field. Penciled in the world’s science books, the museum currently displays a range of 350 to 400 types of fish, out of which only 20% are famous discovered fossils that bear special Latin appellations. Specimens of these fossils are offered at very affordable prices that fluctuate according to size and type. As for the rare and unique pieces, they are carefully taken care of and permanently exposed at the museum, not for sale. Haqel  has provided hundreds of museums and colleges, as well as thousands of amateur fossil collectors in the world with fossilized fish. Nohra still foresees the day when he will see the establishment of his dream museum which will enable him to accommodate the huge number of existing fossils which increase day after day.  

On the occasion of the historical visit to Lebanon of His Holiness Pope Jean Paul II, two of the most scientifically valuable fossils of two rare fish: the Aipichthys and the Cyclobatis, were offered to His Holiness in boxes made of wood from Lebanon.

Haqel: (small paragraph on the origin of the name)