AT A GLANCE
Why go?
The National Museum near Kartavya Path in New Delhi is one of India's largest and most rewarding cultural institutions, holding more than two lakh artefacts spanning sculptures, paintings, manuscripts, coins, decorative arts and textiles — everything, in short, from prehistory to the modern moment. Standing among these galleries is a single, compact place to witness the long, layered story of the subcontinent under one roof.↗↗
The museum's own curators reckon that a minute spent with each object would take nearly four years; the sensible antidote is their 'Museum in 90 Minutes' route, a curated thread of 25 masterpieces that frames the collection's historical and stylistic breadth before you wander off to explore in depth.↗
Good to know
- National museum
- Opening hoursVaries by day
- Wheelchair accessseating
- Free parking
- Good for kids
- Restroom
- Official site
- 4.6 / 521,334 reviews
- India
Where it all begins: the Harappan gallery
The first gallery on the ground floor sets the clock far back. Built around finds from the pioneering excavations of the early 20th century and the post-independence seasons that followed, the Harappan gallery displays objects that the museum calls the richest and most important of their kind in the world. The Indus — or Harappan — civilization is presented as one of the oldest on earth alongside Egypt and Mesopotamia, and the gallery lays out a comparative chronology of the four great Bronze Age civilizations of the 3rd millennium B.C.E. that flourished at the same time.
