Description of the attraction
The National Museum of Malaysia is the largest collection of cultural heritage items and unique artifacts of the country's history. The main museum of the capital is located near the Lake Park, and is considered one of the most visited.
Its predecessor was the Selangor Museum, established by the colonial government in 1898. At the end of World War II, the right wing of the museum was destroyed by American bombing. The left continued to function, and on its basis it was decided to create a museum of the independent state of Malaysia. It took almost four years to build. The architects managed to combine elements of Malay palace architecture with traditional folk architecture. The main entrance looks imposing due to the huge panels located on either side of it. These mosaics, executed by Malay artists, represent key episodes in the country's history.
The area of the two-story museum is divided into four galleries. The first part exhibits archaeological finds, mostly unique: objects made of stone from the Paleolithic era, ceramics from the Neolithic times, a thousand-year-old Bodhisattva sculpture and other rarities covering the Stone, Bronze and Iron Ages. The museum is proud of the skeleton of a man who lived in Malaysia more than ten thousand years ago.
The exposition of the second gallery is devoted to the origin and development of early settlements, the emergence of the kingdoms of the Malacca peninsula, the creation of the Muslim sultanate. A variety of subjects tell the story of the Malaysian peninsula's rise as an influential trade center. The collection of exhibits of the third zone tells about the colonial period of the history of Malaysia, the difficult times of the Japanese occupation, and ends in 1945. The development of the national movement, the struggle for independence, the achievements of the modern state - all this is presented in the fourth gallery dedicated to the recent history of Malaysia.
The National Museum has rich collections of knives, headdresses, including Malaysian rulers, women's jewelry, musical instruments, etc. The Ethnographic Hall presents dioramas of the rituals of all peoples living in Malaysia.
The museum space begins with external mosaics with historical subjects and continues with open-air expositions, where the most curious examples of transport from different eras are located. Old carts and pedicabs are adjacent to the first car and a locally made locomotive. The most interesting object of the open exhibition is the Istana Satu wooden architecture monument. It was built in the 19th century for one of the sultans, as a temporary house to replace the burnt down palace. The building with rich carvings, without a single nail, was moved to the museum. After restoration, an exposition of the interior decoration of the palace was placed in it.
