An archaeological museum that is situated in the area of Naqquar Khana in the GolG Gumbaz complex was set up in 1892 as the district museum. With the passage of time this was converted into a site museum in 1982. The architecture of the museum is like an Adilshahi and is named as Naqquar Khana. The museum has been built on a raised platform and is huge. It comprises of attic arches with giant docks. The museum displays antique furniture pieces that were used by the British officials.

The other assortments of the museum comprises of the stone impressions written in Arabic, Kannada, Persian and Sanskrit languages that have been done in various types of scripts, the effigies of Brahmanical and Jaina, hero stones, the details and simple scripts, ancient coins, antique china wares, carvings done on wood, maps, carpets, minuscule paintings, Bidiri ware, many of the old household items that belong to the period of 6th century AD to 18th century AD.

The interiors of the museum comprises of number of galleries where three rooms are on ground floor and three of them on first level. The articles housed in the museum are majorly mobile ethnic articles that also have resemblance to the Adilshahi artistic articles.

The first gallery in the museum houses the Brahmanical artifacts while the other gallery comprises of figures of the Jain community. Third gallery is the house for engraving stones written in various languages like Arabic, Sanskrit, Persian and Kannada with large number of inscriptions. There is fourth gallery which displays different types of arms, armaments and other metal works. Fifth gallery comprises of small paintings, miniature metal articles, carpets etc. The last and sixth gallery shows the inscriptions in Persian and Arabic, China made Porcelain articles etc. The slabs that has inscriptions of calligraphy, the Holy Quran scripts have also been inscribed, torso of many royal personal are displayed, enlarged photos of Adilshahi mini specimens, photographs of Kings and Queens forms the major part of this museum.

The museum also houses the belongings of Mahatma Gandhi that constitute of his cloths, sandals, books, his walking stick etc.

Timings & Tickets

The timings to visit museum is 10:00 AM to 5:00 PM on all days of week. The museum remains closed on Fridays.

Entrance Fee

Entry for children below age 15 years is free while rest all the visitors have to pay Rs 2 as the museum entrance fee.

Contact Details

Archaeological Museum Aihole,
Taluk Badami, District Bagalkot,
Karnataka State
Phone number: 08351-284551