Telangana State Archaeology Museum

The Telangana State Archaeology Museum stands in the Public Gardens at Nampally and is the oldest museum in Hyderabad. It grew out of the archaeology department created under the last Nizam, which carried out excavations across the region and took charge of protecting important monuments, and much of what that work recovered is shown here.

The star exhibit is a mummy thought to be more than 2,350 years old. The galleries also hold Hindu, Jain and Buddhist sculpture, bronzes and paintings reaching back to the Chalukya and Vijayanagara periods, along with manuscripts, textiles and later paintings. Among the rarer pieces is a copy of the Quran bearing the seal of the Mughal emperor Shah Jahan.