National Museum of Bangladesh

Bangladesh National Museum conserves and displays the cultural assets and tradition, as well as specimens of natural history of Bangladesh. Its mission is to set up a bridge among the past and the present and uphold the national tradition and culture. The museum itself has a history, which began with the establishment of Dhaka Museum on 20 March 1913 with a yearly government contribution of Rs 2,000. The Governor of Bengal, LORD CARMICHAEL, officially inaugurated the museum on 7 August 1913 in a room of the Secretariat Building (at present, the DHAKA MEDICAL COLLEGE AND HOSPITAL).

The plea for location up a museum in DHAKA was primary made in the newspaper The DHAKA NEWS on 1 November 1856. In 1909, a few changes were transferred from Shillong to Dhaka, and a appropriate place was wanted to protect them. H E Stapleton, a famous numismatist made a suggestion to Governor Sir Lancelot Hare on 1 March 1910 to establish a museum in Dhaka. Therefore, a meeting of renowned citizens of Dhaka was held on 25 July 1912 at NORTHBROOK HALL. The establishment of the museum was officially accepted by the government and available in the administrator Gazette of 5 March 1913. A short-term broad Committee of 30 members was constituted with Nicholas D Beatson-Bell, representative of Dhaka Division, as president. It was authorised to appoint a temporary executive committee to draft rules for the organization of the museum. The rules drawn up were accepted by the government on 18 November 1913, and in agreement with these, a general committee and an administrative committee were formed.

In the first meeting of the general board held on 3 March 1914, a decision was taken to demand the Bengal government for an allowance of Rs 5,000 to cover the growth operating expense of the museum for 1914-15. The first meeting of the administrative board was held on 19 May 1914. At this meeting the summary financial plan for the year 1914-15 was equipped and a decision was taken to employ a curator. NALINI KANTA BHATTASALI joined as the first guardian of Dhaka Museum on 6 July 1914, with a monthly salary of Rs 100. Although the museum was inaugurated on 7 August 1913, it was opened to the public on 25 August 1914, with 379 substances on show. A total of 4,453 people visited the museum in 1914-15; with them 143 were female.

Gradually, collections and actions of the museum improved. The secretariat of the museum was transferred to Baraduwari and Deuri at Nimtali (now in the premises of the Asiatic Society of Bangladesh) in July 1915. In 1936, the government dissolved both the general board and the administrative committee and a 9-member Dhaka Museum Committee was created with the Vice Chancellor of the UNIVERSITY OF DHAKA as head and the curator of the museum as secretary. Nalini Kanta Bhattasali died on 6 February 1947. Later, Professor Ahmed Hasan Dani, Professor Abu Mohamed Habibullah, Professor Sirajul Haque and Dr Mafizullah Kabir worked as part-time voluntary curators at different times. According to the Dhaka Museum order, a board of trustees was created on 22 April 1970 and the museum became an independent institution. The Bangladesh Jatiya Jadughar (National Museum) Ordinance was promulgated on 20 September 1983 under which the Bangladesh Jatiya Jadughar Board of Trustees has been constituted on 15 November 1983.

The Bangladesh National Museum was shifted to its current site at Shahbag on 17 November 1983. The four-storied structure of the museum has 43 galleries on a total floor space of 238,000 square feet. The galleries include: Bangladesh in maps; Rural Bangladesh; SUNDARBANS; rocks and raw materials; flora; flowers, FRUITs and creepers; animals; BIRDs; mammals; ELEPHANT; life in Bangladesh; BOATs of Bangladesh; tribes of Bangladesh-1; tribes of Bangladesh-2; potteries; archaeological artifacts; sculpture-1; monument construction; inscription; coins, medals and ORNAMENTS; ivory works; arms and armaments; metal works; porcelain and glassware; dolls; musical instruments; TEXTILES and costumes; embroidered quilts; wood carvings-1; wood carvings-2; manuscripts and documents; established and minute paintings; Shilpacharya ZAINUL ABEDIN Gallery; fashionable art-1; fashionable art-2; eternal Bangladesh, portraits of national heroes, historical documents and mementos of national heroes, martyred intellectuals; WAR OF LIBERATION-1; War of Liberation-2; world art-1; world art-2 and portraits of world personalities. The museum has two auditoriums - one with 700 seats and the other with 200 seats, a provisional exhibition hall and office accommodation for officers and the staff.

By June 1998, the museum had composed 82,475 objects. The majority important objects are: ancient petrified wood (2.5 million years old) composed from LALMAI and MAINAMATI; blackstone Naga Darwaza (serpent doorway) of 10th-11th century collected from Bangarh, DINAJPUR; pieces of atom bombs blasted in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan in 1945; mat made of ivory; substance of the freedom War of Bangladesh; objects old by the martyrs of the LANGUAGE MOVEMENT; MUSLIN of Dhaka; items of folk art and crafts; coins of monarch Sher Shah; terracotta plaques; sculptures and collection of contemporary art counting various types of statues.

A large segment of the financial plan of the museum comes from the government as grant. The sources of the museum's own profits include the rent collected from the four auditoriums and other buildings and sale of access tickets. The administrator general is the chief executive of the museum. It has four division museums: Osmany Museum at SYLHET; AHSAN MANZIL Museum in Dhaka; Zia Smite Museum in CHITTAGONG, and the Shilpacharya Zainul Abedin Sangrahashala at MYMENSINGH. The number of foreign and local visitors at the museum average 2,345 a day. For bucolic people, the museum organized a Mobile showing in 1979 with a particular bus containing a Mini Museum of 28 small galleries. The objective of this programmer was to make the masses recognizable with the civilization and tradition of Bangladesh.

In 1976, the museum ongoing the educate service programmed that provide the students of Dhaka city with the chance to visit the museum by using its own transportation. Under this programmed, a total of 24,013 student visitors visited the museum throughout 1996-97.

According to the natural history of objects displayed, the museum is alienated into four curatorial departments. These are: Department of History and Classical Art, Department of Ethnography and Decorative Art, division of fashionable Art and World Civilizations, and division of Natural History. The significant objects under the supervision of the division of History and Classical Art include the table on which the tool of Surrender was signed by the Pakistan army on 16 December 1971; the first flag of independent Bangladesh hoisted at foreign missions; documents of the freedom War of Bangladesh; torment machines; The historic declaration of BANGABANDHU SHEIKH MUJIBUR RAHMAN delivered on 7 March 1971 in Dhaka; the bullet- ridden and blood-stained shirt and shoes of Shaheed Shafiur Rahman, a martyr of the language association of 1952; personal mementos of martyred intellectuals and Shaheed Asad; historical mementos of ROQUIAH SAKHAWAT HOSSAIN, MICHAEL MADHUSUDAN DUTT, KAZI NAZRUL ISLAM and RABINDRANATH TAGORE; ancient Blackstone, sandstone and metal sculptures; coins of gold, silver and metal; ancient inscriptions and manuscripts; terracotta plaques; wooden sculpture; medals, royal decrees and famous artworks; iron axes; archaeological artifacts and objects of religious significance.

extraordinary objects under the management of the division of Ethnography and ornamental Art include muslin SARI; decorative sunshade and sari; choga (a sort of movable and long outer dress); achkan (kinkhab- ceremonial dress); textiles; boats of Bangladesh; arms made of iron; cannons; nakada (war drum); swords; filigree models; ivory works; NAKSHI KANTHA (embroidered quilt); tableware and dishes of chinaware; potteries; dolls; wood carvings; musical instruments; knick-knacks worn by various tribes; dresses worn by tribes; ornaments worn by women; fishing equipment; objects of family ornament; moulds of attractive cakes; and strings of glass-beads.

The vital objects under the division of old Art and World Civilizations include paintings and sculptures of Shilpacharya Zainul Abedin, Quamrul Hasan and artist S M Sultan and artworks and reproductions of works by well-known artists from home and abroad; potteries burnt through the Second World War in Hiroshima of Japan and a variety of local and foreign objects together from Bangabhaban.

Matter supervised by the subdivision of Natural History comprise mapping of rocks, reserves and people of Bangladesh; environmental map of Bangladesh; water colour paintings of rural Bangladesh; stuffed Royal BENGAL TIGER of the Sundarbans, chitral deer, honey bee, PEAFOWL, CATTLE and birds, fruits and flowers, butterflies, pet animals, marine mollusc, elephant, monkey, LANGUR and the skeleton of a whale. Two other departments are management Laboratory and division of Public instruction. The laboratory looks after the restitution of museum objects using systematic methods. The division of Public Education conducts museum-related education programmers for the public and students. This division has seven sections: education, display, library, publications, audio-visual, auditorium and photography. The division of Public Education organizes seminars, symposia, exhibitions, competitions and learning and cultural functions.