Lahore Museum Lahore, Pakistan

The Lahore Museum (Punjabi: لاہور میوزیم, Urdu: لاہور عجائب گھر‎), was originally established in 1865-66 on the site of the hall or building of the 1864 Punjab Exhibition and later shifted to its present site located on The Mall, Lahore, Punjab, Pakistan in 1894.

Rudyard Kipling's father, John Lockwood Kipling, was one of the earliest and most famous curators of the museum. The next curator was K. N. Sitaram.

The Museum contains some fine specimens of Mughal and Sikh door-ways and wood-work and has a large collection of paintings dating back to the Mughal, Sikh and British periods. It includes a collection of musical instruments, ancient jewellery, textiles, pottery, and armory. There are important relics from the Indus Valley civilisation, Gandhara and Graeco-Bactrian periods as well as some Tibetan and Nepalese work on display. The museum has a number of Greco-Buddhist sculptures, Mughal and Pahari paintings on display.The Fasting Buddha from the Gandhara period is one of the most famous objects of the museum. The ceiling of the entrance hall features a large mural by renowned Pakistani artist Sadequain.

Over 250,000 visitors were registered in 2005.

The current building of Lahore Museum was designed by the well-known architect Sir Ganga Ram. The Museum is the biggest museum of the country. A number of rooms have been under repair for a long time and others still show a rather old-fashioned and often rudimental display of objects, with Urdu captions only.

Lahore Museum’s majestic red-brick building stands on Shahrahe-Quaid-e-Azam, previously known as the Mall. Blended with the old tradition of Mughal Architecture, Lahore Museum stands out among the structures built in Lahore during the British period (1849-1947). This building is home to the country's largest and oldest collection of historical, cultural and artistic objects. Its collections of Gandhara sculpture, miniature paintings rare manuscripts and old coins are known throughout the world. Similarly, its treasure of modern paintings, arts and crafts and ethnology are a national heritage beyond comparison. These collections attract research scholars, students and tourists from all over the world and constitute a unique cross-section of the cultural history of the Subcontinent The history of areas outside the Subcontinent is also brought to life here-the Museum houses artefacts from many countries and regions such as Burma, Bhutan, Nepal, Tibet, Central Asia, the Middle East and Africa.
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