Lahore Museum

The Lahore Museum or Ajaib Ghar (Urdu: Wonder House) is a museum in the city of Lahore, Pakistan. It is the largest and best museum in the country.

Lahore Museum

عجائب گھر لاہور‎
Entrance to the museum
Location within Lahore
Established	1865, later shifted to present site 1894
Location	The Mall, Lahore Punjab Pakistan
Coordinates	31.568226°N 74.308174°E / 31.568226; 74.308174
Type	Archaeology, art, heritage, modern history, religious
Collection size	Pre & Proto, Coins, Hindu Buddhist & Jain, Gandhara, Islamic, Manuscripts, Miniature Paintings, General Collection, Arms, Ethnological, Postage & Stamps, Arts & Crafts, Contemporary Paintings, Pakistan Movement Gallery
Visitors	250,000 in 2005
Website	Official website

History

The original old Lahore Museum was made during British Indian times in the 1860s, in what had been the old 'Punjab Exhibition Hall'^[1] and the famous gun Zam Zama was installed outside it in 1870. This old museum, along with the Punjab School of Arts (later the Mayo College of Arts) was looked after by John Lockwood Kipling (1837-1911) father of the writer Rudyard Kipling, who mentioned the museum and Zam Zama in his Kim (book) (1901).^[2] In 1894, the museum's new building was completed and it moved there^[3] the same year, right opposite the old campus of the University of the Punjab, on the Mall.

Collection

The Lahore Museum is set in its beautiful grounds and has one of the best collections of arts and artifacts in its galleries in South Asia. Especially notable are:

• ancient Gandhara Buddhist sculptures
• Tibetan and Hill States collection
• collection of miniature paintings from the Mughal Empire and the Pahari school
• collection of contemporary paintings by some of Pakistan's most prominent artists such as Ustad Allah Bux, A.R. Chughtai, Shakir Ali, Sadequain, Gulgee and others.