Bangladesh National Museum

The Bangladesh National Museum [ Bengali: বাংলাদেশ জাতীয় যাদুঘর ], originally established on 20 March 1913, albeit under another name (the Dhaka Museum), and formally inaugurated on 7 August 1913, was accorded the status of the national museum of Bangladesh on 17 November 1983. It is located at Shahbag, Dhaka. The museum is well organized and displays have been housed chronologically in several departments like department of ethnography and decorative art, department of history and classical art, department of natural history, and department of contemporary and world civilization. The museum also has a rich conservation laboratory.

Visiting Hours and Entry Fees

Visiting Hours

Entry Fees

• Bangladeshi Citizens : 20 Taka
• Children (3 - 12 Years) : 10 Taka
• Citizens of SAARC Countries : 20 Taka
• Other Foreign Citizens : 100 Taka

History

The history of Bangladesh National Museum is eventful and glorious, connected as it has been, in chronological sequence, with British Indian history, the birth and dissolution of Pakistan, and the emergence of Bangladesh.

At the turn of the twentieth century Lord Curzon, Viceroy of India, by his policy of provincial readjustment, provided the political ground for the establishment of a museum in Dhaka. He partitioned Bengal on 16 October 1905. The historic city of Dhaka became the capital of the new Province of Eastern Bengal and Assam. Consequently, Dhaka witnessed a tremendous physical growth with all-round development. The proposal to start a museum in Dhaka was first mooted in the autumn of 1905 in connection with the transfer of the Shillong Coin Cabinet to Dhaka. As a result of a letter, dated 1 March 1910, submitted by H. E. Stapleton in his capacity as the Honorary Numismatist to the Provincial Government, to the Director of Public Instruction. Sir Lancelot Hare, Lieutenant Governor of Eastern Bengal and Assam, passed orders for the selection of a site for a museum in Dhaka. But no definite action was taken until 1912 when the proposal for starting a university in Dhaka brought the matter again into prominence.

As the partition of Bengal was revoked on 1 April 1912, the thought that the glory of the old and illustrious city was once more to wane, saddened the elites of Dhaka. They began to press their demand for developing the future university town. Because of the absence of a public museum in Eastern Bengal many antiquities that turned up on casual excavation in the Dhaka and Chittagong Divisions, were removed to the Indian Museum in Kolkata. This position was unacceptable to the elites of Dhaka. They met Lord Thomas David Baron Carmichael, the Governor of the Presidency of Bengal, under the leadership of N. Bonham-Carter, Commissioner, Dhaka Division, at a conversazione held in the Northbrook Hall on 25 July 1912. The purpose of the meeting was to make the final attempt to realize their long standing claim to a museum in Dhaka. Their address of welcome to the Governor emphasized the immediate necessity of the establishment of a university, a museum and a public library in Dhaka which had by that time been again reduced to the status of a district town. The address also drew the attention of Lord Carmichael to a temporary exhibition of a large number of antiquities gathered together mostly on loan from different sources. The Governor conceded to the demand for a museum and was pleased shortly afterwards to make a grant of Rs. 2,000 to cover the initial expenditure on the proposed museum.