About This Museum
The Museum of Arts and Traditions of Kef is installed on the heights of the city, in a former sanctuary. This museum has been endowed with both an anthropological and ethnographic dimension. It reflects and explains the artisanal and intangible heritage of a region rich in traditions where sedentary life and nomadism, urbanity and rurality mingle.
In a succession of rooms opening onto each other before leading to the courtyard of a traditional residence, the museum allows us to access the world of nomadic groups around the city of Kef. The rooms have been converted into showrooms for various craft activities. Visitors also discover the intimacy of the domestic, professional and spiritual life of the city itself, which has always been the capital of this region of northwestern Tunisia and its center of economic and religious activity.
In the courtyard of the museum stands one of the best preserved Islamic sundials in Tunisia. Previously located in the Great Mosque of Kef, it was moved when the latter was rebuilt in the lower part of the city, to free up the Byzantine trough building that it housed.
The first room is square in plan and covered with a dome pierced with small windows. It is the most beautiful room in the museum. Its walls are covered with ceramic panels and finely chiseled stucco plates. Floral motifs and reproductions of the different names of Allah decorate the walls. On the corners are calligraphic inscriptions of the names of Allah and Muhammad. The second room is also square in plan and surmounted by a small dome resting on four columns. This room is the old mosque. It has kept its old mihrab decorated with an engraving on stucco.
The third room is similar in construction to the first room. It is the Koranic school. The exhibited collections relate to equestrian activities. Visitors can admire richly decorated saddles or a collection of rifles and powder gourds. The fourth room is actually a covered passage with multiple small rooms where everyday objects and crafts are displayed. Many pieces of pottery are presented there, as well as their manufacturing techniques. There is also a rich collection of household utensils, incense burners, and smokers for bees
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Frequently Asked Questions
The Museum of Arts and Traditions of Le Kef is housed in Dar Kaoua, a former sanctuary building in the old town. It displays equestrian equipment, traditional firearms, ceramics, costumes, and folk art from the Kef region, with a particular highlight being Tunisia's best-preserved Islamic sundial and an intact decorated mihrab.
The museum preserves what is considered the best-preserved Islamic sundial in Tunisia, used historically to determine prayer times. Sundials of this type were essential instruments of religious timekeeping in pre-modern Islamic society, and complete surviving examples are rare.
The museum is in Dar Kaoua in the old town of Le Kef, within walking distance of the kasbah, the Roman basilica-turned-Byzantine church, and the Kef Synagogue. Le Kef's compact heritage centre is easily explored on foot.
Le Kef is a hillside town with an extraordinary layered history: a Roman basilica (later a Byzantine church), a kasbah, an Ottoman-era mosque, a historic synagogue, and the museum of traditions are all within a short walk. The town also enjoys a dramatic position on the edge of a cliff with views over the Kef plain.
Entry costs a small fee (typically 3-5 TND). Le Kef is approximately 175 km southwest of Tunis, reachable by bus or louage in about two and a half hours.
Yes. Le Kef and Dougga are about 50 km apart and can be combined in a day trip or an overnight stay in Le Kef. The drive between them passes through beautiful Tell Atlas countryside.
