Bardo National Museum

Tunisia's national museum occupies a former palace of the beys in the Bardo district, west of central Tunis, extended by a modern wing. It opened in 1888 and holds one of the largest collections of Roman mosaics anywhere, many of them lifted from villas at Carthage, Dougga, Sousse and El Jem. Well-known pieces include the portrait of the poet Virgil between two Muses and Ulysses resisting the Sirens. Other galleries cover prehistory, Punic Carthage, early Christian art, Islamic art and objects recovered from the Mahdia shipwreck. The palace rooms, with their painted ceilings, are worth seeing in their own right.