Hebrew, Christian and Islamic manuscripts enrich the museum's collection (bible-orient-museum.ch) (bible-orient-museum.ch)

The narrow display hall of the Bible+Orient Museum is rich in treasures, some 15,000 unique pieces from the ancient Near East, valued at SFr8 million ($8.9 million).

Often overlooked, the museum serves to recall the common roots between the three monotheistic religions and to encourage dialogue between them.

The Bible+Orient Museum occupies a very modest space at the Institute of Biblical Studies of Fribourg University. Apart from the permanent exhibition inside its small, elegant display hall, which was established in November 2005, it organises special exhibitions in the corridors of the institute and mobile exhibitions that carry the museum’s pieces to cities in and outside Switzerland.

swissinfo’s tour with museum director Thomas Staubli, professor of Old Testament at Fribourg University, starts in the corridors of the Institute of Biblical Studies, where a special exhibition entitled “One thousand and one amulets” is being shown.

Charms of various shapes and colours meet the eye, including turquoise amulets, first produced by ancient Egyptians, and women’s necklaces, which surely inspired the designers of today’s jewellery.

The exhibition also displays a collection of cylindrical and flat seals, ancient Egyptian scarab artifacts, 3,700-year-old amulets from Palestine and others from Iran and Syria dating back to the fifth and sixth millennium BC.

Amulets for all

What catches the eye immediately looking at the first glass showcase is the deliberate link between old amulets and what can be called contemporary amulets.

An antique veil decorated with amulets and coins and bearing the name of God (see attached photo gallery) is juxtaposed by a set of modern medicines…

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