National Museum

The National Museum in Colombo was opened in 1877 by English Governor William Henry Gregory. It is located in a beautiful old mansion of the 19th century and is considered the largest museum in the country. It opened as a Museum of Natural History and contained a rather small collection, but the expansion of the exposition and research work were carried out constantly, and in 1942 the museum became a national museum.

It contains items that tell the history of Sri Lanka from the Stone Age to the present day. These are the manuscripts, throne and crown of the last king of Ceylon Kandy, his clothes, bronze and ivory products, ritual masks, musical instruments, tools, minerals and rocks, fossil animals and plants, objects of Buddhist and Hindu art and much more.

The museum’s extensive library contains nearly half a million volumes on the island’s history, including several thousand manuscripts written on palm leaves. It also houses the originals of every code of law ever published in Sri Lanka.