Lahore Museum

The Lahore Museum (Urdu: عجائب گھر لاہور, romanized: Ajā'ib Ghar Lāhōr; lit. 'Lahore Wonder House') is a museum located in Lahore, Punjab, Pakistan. Founded in 1865 at a smaller location and opened in 1894 at its current location on The Mall in Lahore during the British colonial period, Lahore Museum is Pakistan's largest museum, as well as one of its most visited ones.
The museum houses an extensive collection of Buddhist art from the ancient Indo-Greek and Gandhara kingdoms. It also has collections from the Indus Valley Civilisation, Mughal Empire, Sikh Empire and the British Raj.
The Lahore Museum, along with the Zamzama Gun located directly in front of the building, is the setting of the opening scene in the novel Kim by Rudyard Kipling, whose father, John Lockwood Kipling, was one of the museum's earliest curators.
Lahore Museum was originally established in 1865–66 on the site of the current Tollinton Market – a hall built for the 1864 Punjab Exhibition. The present building was constructed as a memorial of Golden Jubilee of Queen Victoria held in 1887, and financed through a special public fund raised on the occasion. The foundation stone of the new museum was laid on 3 February 1890 by Prince Albert Victor, Duke of Clarence, Queen Victoria's grandson. On its completion in 1894, the entire museum collection was transferred to present building with its new name as Jubilee Museum.
The museum's collection was shifted in 1894 to its present location on The Mall, in Lahore's British-era core. The present building was designed by Bhai Ram Singh and John Lockwood Kipling.
Rudyard Kipling's father, John Lockwood Kipling, was one of the museum's first curators, and was succeeded by K. N. Sitaram.
In 1948, as part of the partition of Punjab, the artefacts of the museum were divided between the newly formed countries of Pakistan and India, with the museum retaining about 60% of its collection. The rest was given to India and eventually housed at the Government Museum and Art Gallery in Chandigarh, built specifically for this purpose.
The museum's golden years are considered to be from 1970 to 1990, when scholar, archaeologist, and museologist Dr Saif-ur-Rehman Dar served as its director. He wrote several books about the museum, and his tenure was complemented by that of B.A. Qureshi, who was the chairman of the museum's board of governors back then.
Over 250,000 visitors were registered at the Lahore Museum in 2005. This dropped to 236,536 in 2016, 214,697 in 2017, but rose to 227,994 in 2018. It was the most popular museum of Pakistan among foreigners in 2016 (2,956 visits) and 2017 (2,941 visits). It dropped to second place (with 3,659 foreign visitors) in 2018, having been replaced by Taxila Museum.
The museum displays archaeological materials from Bronze Age (Indus Valley Civilisation) to the medieval era Hindu Shahi and Mughal period. It has one of the largest collections of archaeology, history, arts, fine arts, applied arts, ethnology, and craft objects in Pakistan. It also has an extensive collection of Hellenistic and Mughal coins. There is also a photo gallery dedicated to the emergence of Pakistan as an independent state, the Pakistan Movement Gallery.
The museum has a number of Greco-Buddhist sculptures, Mughal and Pahari paintings on display. Over 58,000 artifacts are reported to be part of its collection, with only 14,000 being on display. The collection contains important relics from the Indus Valley civilization, Gandhara, and Graeco-Bactrian periods as well. The Fasting Buddha, dating from the Gandhara period, is one of the museums most prized and celebrated objects.
The ceiling of the entrance hall features The Evolution of Mankind, a large mural consisting of 48 panels (each measuring 6 by 8 feet). It was painted by Pakistani artist Sadequain who originally completed it in 1973. Due to the weather conditions and termite attacks, the mural suffered significant damage over the years, A grant was approved by the Governor of Punjab in 2008 to start the restoration work. It was taken down in 2010, while restoration work began in 2012. By 2018, 16 of the panels had been restored by Uzma Usmani and Mumtaz Hussain.
The museum also contains fine specimens of Mughal and Sikh carved woodwork and has a large collection of paintings dating back to the British period. The collection also includes musical instruments, ancient jewelry, textiles, pottery, and armory, as well as some Tibetan and Nepalese work on display.
The following is a list of the museum's directors.
The book Masterpieces of Lahore Museum, written by Anjum Rehmani, was published by the museum in 1999 with financial assistance from UNESCO. A new edition was published in 2006.