The museum's Egyptian Revival building and its collection suffered extensive damage in the war, but most of the artifacts were saved by last-minute preemptive measures.

Today, after a major renovation, the National Museum of Beirut has regained its former position, with about 1,300 artifacts exhibited ranging in date from prehistoric times to the medieval Mamluk period.

In 1919, a small group of ancient artifacts collected by Raymond Weill, a French officer stationed in Lebanon, was exhibited at a provisional museum in the Kaiserswerth Deaconesses' building in Georges Picot Street, Beirut.

[3][4] The founding committee included: Alfred Sursok, Marios Hanimoglo, Albert Bassoul, Omar Daouk, Kamil Eddeh, Ali Jumblat, Henry Pharaoun, George Faissy, Assad Younes, Hassan Makhzoumi, Joseph Farahi, George Korom, Jean Debs, Wafik Beydoun and Jack Tabet.

The collection continued to grow under the direction of Mir Maurice Chehab, head curator for 33 years,[8][9] until the start of the Lebanese Civil War in 1975.

[4][11] "Museum alley" became a checkpoint controlled by various Lebanese militias, or the Syrian or Israeli armies, who opened and closed the road under short-lived truces.

The first protective measures inside the museum were initiated by Mir Maurice Chehab and his wife[13][14] during alternating fire-fights and moments of truce.

The vulnerable small artifacts were removed from their showcases and hidden in storerooms in the basement, which was then walled up, banning any access to the lower floors.

The wing adjacent to the Directorate General of Antiquities was devastated by shells which started a fire, destroying documents such as maps, photographs, and records, as well as 45 boxes containing archaeological objects.

The proposal to tear down the concrete walls and cases which protected the national treasures was turned down by the general director of antiquities, Camille Asmar, since the museum still had no doors or windows to prevent further looting.

[4] The museum was officially inaugurated on November 25, 1997, by then president Elias Hrawi but only parts of the ground floor and basement were made accessible since the remainder of the building was still under repair and important modifications were needed to meet the requirements of modern museology standards.

[21] In 2011, the ground floor restoration lab was moved and a new exhibition hall, named after prince Maurice Chehab was opened to the public.

[25] The basement collection showcases funerary art and practices beginning with articles dating back from prehistory until the Ottoman era.

Other artifacts of note are the naturally preserved Maronite mummies of ‘Assi el Hadath cave in the Qadisha valley and the frescoed tomb of Tyre.

[28][29] The museum was designed in a French inspired[30] Egyptian Revival architecture by the architects Antoine Nahas and Pierre Leprince-Ringuet, and built with Lebanese ochre limestone.

[7] The Bronze Age (3200–1200 BC) saw the birth of Lebanon's first fortified villages, the development of commercial and maritime activities and the invention of the world's first alphabet in Byblos.

[34] Collection highlights: The Iron Age (1200–333 BC) in Lebanon saw the climax of the Phoenician civilization, which culminated in its maritime expansion and the transmission to other cultures of the alphabet (which was attributed by the Greek legend to the Tyrian Cadmus).

In 333 BC, the decisive victory won by Alexander the Great over the Persian king Darius III opened Phoenicia to the Greek conqueror.

The emperor ordered the destruction of pagan temples, but cults like those of Adonis and Jupiter Optimus Maxiums Heliopolitanus were kept alive by the local population and survived in some form for centuries.

Lebanon was directly affected by the various dynastic changes which brought to power successively the Umayyads, Abbasids, Fatimids, Seljuks, Ayyubids and Mamluks.