The Indian Museum

Address: 27 Jawaharlal Nehru Road 
Timing: Tuesday-Sunday, 10am-6pm
The oldest museum in Asia and the largest in India, tracing its origin to 1814, with roughly 2.5 million objects across six sections in a neoclassical building completed in 1875. Give it real time: a half day at minimum. The Archaeology section is world-class: Gandharan Buddhist sculpture, an Ashokan capital and railings from the Bharhut stupa, Harappan stone sculpture and a portion of the Piprahwa relics, bone fragments identified as remains of the Buddha, newly topical after a halted 2025 auction attempt and a major 2026 Delhi exposition. The Natural History section preserves old-style Victorian museology intact; the Coin Gallery runs from 6th-century BCE punch-marked coins through Mughal and colonial currency; a small Egyptian Gallery holds a genuine mummy. The Art section spans Mughal miniatures and Bengal School painting, and the Anthropology section, currently being revised, is the most museologically dated part of the institution.