April 30, 2009

National Museum Of Pakistan

The National Museum of Pakistan in Karachi, Pakistan, was established in Frere Hall Building on April 17, 1950, replacing the defunct Victoria Museum. Frere Hall itself was built in 1865 as a tribute to Sir Bartle Frere, a Commissioner of Sindh during the 19th century. The basic objective of establishing National Museum was to collect, preserve, study, and exhibit the records of the cultural history of Pakistan and to promote a learned insight into the personality of its people. Once the Museum was inaugurated then the Government of Pakistan deemed it wise to constitute an Advisory Council in 1950 with a primary duty to counsel the Museum on the issues of enriching its collection through new acquisitions and purchase of antiquities and works of Arts.

The Museum was shifted to the present premises (located in Burns Garden, Dr. Zia-ud-din Road) in 1970. At that time there were only four galleries in the Museum. However, at present there are a total of 11 Galleries in the Museum including an exquisite “Quran Gallery”. As a matter of fact National Museum has more than 300 copies of the Holy Quran (all are exactly the same), out of which around 52 rare manuscripts are on display in “Quran Gallery”. The Museum also contains an important collection of items relating to Pakistan's Cultural heritage. Some other galleries display Indus Civilization artifacts, Gandhara Civilization Sculptures, Islamic Art, Miniature Paintings, Ancient Coins and Manuscripts documenting Pakistan's Political History. There is also an interesting Ethnological Gallery with life size statues of different ethnicities living in the four provinces of Pakistan.

The Museum has a collection of 58,000 old coins (some dating from 74 Al-Hijra), and hundreds of well preserved sculptures. Some 70,000 publications, books and other reading material of the Archeology and Museums Department were also shifted to the National Museum so that general public could see them.

Every year National Museum holds around a dozen exhibitions on National Days and other occasions. The Museum premises also has an auditorium with 250 seating capacity.

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4 comments:

Anonymous said...

The museum building looks nice. Would like to visit it :-)

Captain said...

thanks me too, seems exciting.

Anonymous said...

So many historical places in Pakistan. SO much history was created there. We havent really preserved those places very well :(

Captain said...

i agree with you asma but looking at pakistan's current state, we have to secure our future first so we could secure our past.

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