In the far flung southwest of the country, on the scenic archipelago of the Farasan Islands, a Saudi man has built a one of a kind museum that has caught the fancy of social media for the kind of artifacts that this museum has.

The museum has been open for quite some time now but it didn’t break onto the scene until now when suddenly many influencers started sharing posts about it.

زيلعي الزيلعي صاحب متحف بحري في جزيرة فرسان بجازان جنوب السعودية
المتحف وصلت سمعته لإيطاليا ليكون ضيفًا على إحدى القنوات الإيطالية
وقد جمع التحف والكائنات البحرية منذ 16 عام وحنطها بمادة خاصة مستخلصة من أشجار جزيرة فرسان
ويضم المتحف 10 آلاف قطعة منها سلحفاة معمرة عمرها 300 عام pic.twitter.com/wjeWD4S5Ba

— ‏ ‏﮼خالد ﮼التمامي (@khalidyatnet) March 11, 2022

Zaylai Al Zaylai, a retiree, has mummified a slew of aquatic species like fish, turtles, and crustaceans. The story behind the project is that he traveled extensively with a group of fishermen for over 20 days on the archipelago and fell in love with the place. He even learnt how to swim and fish in the process. This was about 16 years ago.

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Since then he along with his wife started gathering and mummifying sea creatures – ones mostly from the Red Sea.

He now has amassed a collection of over 10,000 that he displays in his museum.

One of the biggest attractions here is a mummified whale.