Government Museum, Bangalore

Government Museum in Bangalore was established in 1865 by the Mysore State with the guidance of Surgeon Edward Balfour. Government Museum in Bangalore is one of the oldest museums in India and the second oldest museum in South India. It is now an Archaeological Museum and has a rare collection of archaeological and geological artifacts including old jewellery, sculpture, coins and inscriptions. The museum is also home to the Halmidi inscription, the earliest Kannada inscription ever found (450 AD).



The museum has two exhibition floors which are divided into 18 galleries. The galleries cover sections that span sculpture, natural history, geology, art, music and numismatics.

The museum is an Archaeological Museum and has a rare collection of archaeological and geological artifacts including old jewellery, sculpture, coins and inscriptions. The museum has 70 paintings, 84 sculptures, and hundreds of other artifacts, some of which unique to the museum. The museum has sculpture from the Hoysala, Gandhara and Nolamba periods.

Neolithic pottery from excavations carried out at Chandravalli, excavations artifacts from Mohenjodaro, Halebid and Vijayanagar, terracotta from Mathura and weapons from Kodagu. Many relics housed at the museum are as much as 5000 years old. The museum also houses rare paintings of Deccan, Mysore and Tanjore kingdoms are found.

The museum has a model of Srirangapatna, the fort of Tipu Sultan. There is a slab in the museum from Tipu's times that has 12 persian couplets. The museum also showcases various old musical instruments. A Tanjore style framework of 64 Narayanas is a unique piece there.

The priced collections of the Museum include the earliest Kannada inscription- the Halmidi inscription, Begur inscription, Aatakur inscriptional slabs are found in this museum.

Government Museum
Kasturba Road, Ambedkar Veedhi,
Sampangi Rama Nagar, Bengaluru, Karnataka 560001