I is for...Invaluable ... n ... Ivory

 

Hello and welcome! to another A-Z series on M-i-V... 

All through April I'll be posting on the broad theme of Museums & Monuments Across the World - mostly those I've been to and a few on my bucket list that I haven't been able to visit yet. Museums are one of my favourite ways to get to know a culture, they sum up what those peoples want to preserve and pass onto their grandchildren, the facets they want to show their foreign visitors, how they perceive, present and preserve their own storyline and that of their interactions with the world. Come museum hopping with me!

I is for the Indian Museum

The Indian Museum in Kolkata is not just the oldest museum in India but was also the oldest and largest multiuse museum in Asia by breadth of collection. It was established in 1814, that's more than 200 years ago, as part of the Asiatic Society of Bengal. Read about the early history of the Museum here.

Consistent visitor numbers are hard to find, but an estimated  ~ 220,000 people visited the Museum in 2024. I have visited it multiple times, couple of times as a schoolkid of which I have little or no memory. The visits I do remember are the ones as adults, once with my child to acquaint him with his own country's history and then again without him. 

It is wondrous and frustrating at the same time. The labels are cryptic without any elaboration, many of the exhibits are not as well lit as they should be, above all, it is not interactive and doesn't engage young people the same way as other museums I've visited, do. However, be that as it may, the exhibits will make you forget all these petty peeves. Absolutely jaw dropping invaluable historical artefacts all over the place. From millennia ago to the 19th century. 

Kushan terracotta. 1st-3rd century CE. On the
glass there's a reflection of a terracotta
pot from the same era. 

A sculpture of a Makar - a mythical beast that's often
found as guardians of temple and palace entrances.11th
Century. Zoom in to see the details. The carving is on
basalt, one of the hardest rocks to sculpt. Btw, also
gives an idea of how large the building is. 

The Museum has 35 galleries divided into 6-7 broad areas - Art, Archeology, Anthropology, Geology, Zoology and Economic Botany. The oldest artifacts in the collection include 1.5 million year old stone tools from the Stone Age, a 4000 year old Egyptian mummy and various objects from the Indus Valley Civilisation aged 4000-4500 years. 

The remnants of a Buddhist stupa  dating from the
1st century BCE  in the Bharhut Gallery. Excavated,
transported in pieces and recreated by Alexander
Cunningham in the late 1870s.

The exposition of the Bhagavat Gita at the battlefield of Kurukshetra.
Ivory. Rajasthan. 18th century.

Venugopala flanked by mythical guardian beasts. Lintel from
temple. Granite. Halebidu, Karnataka. 12th century.

Like I said, there's nothing interactive and it doesn't do much to highlight the marvellousness of the invaluable collections. No audio guides, no video clips, no large charts even explaining the backstories of the hows and whys of the people who carved/built/painted/wove these amazing things without electric power tools. Also, like most large museums, only a part of the entire collection is open for viewing by the public at any given time. Even so, well worth popping in if you're in the area. Read more about the Indian Museum by clicking the links here and here.

~~~

Did you know that the Indian Museum has gone through several iterations? It was initially called the Asiatic Society Museum, then the Imperial Museum and finally the Indian Museum. It is also known in Bengali as Jadughar (lit Magic House) or Ajabghar (lit Wonder-inducing House). 

 

Thank you for visiting and reading. Have a wonderful A-Z if you are taking the Challenge and a wonderful April if you're not!

Posted for the A-Z Challenge 2026