THE NATIONAL MUSEUM OF INDONESIA

A group of Dutch intelectuals and collectors founded the Bataviaasch Genootschap van Kunsten en Wetenschappen on 24 April 1778 as a non-government body to promote researce in arts and sciences,particularly in History, Archeology, Ethnography and Physics,as well as to publish the result of such research.One of  the member, JCM Radermacher,donated a house and his collections of book and antiquities to start a museum  and library of the institution.

The increasing number of collectios motivated Sir Thomas Raffles to built a new building at Majapahit Road in early 19th century to be called Leterary Society Building.In 1862 the Dutch-Indies Government built a new museum which is know today as The National Museum.It was formerly knows as The Elephant Building or The Statue Building due to  an Elephant statue presented by King Culalongkorn from Thailand in the 19th century,which was placed at the front yard of this building.

The Institute was transformed into Indonesian institute of Culture in 1950 and to become Indonesian government's body in 1962 by the name of Central Museum.In 1979 the building was named The National Museum.The museum has 140.000 collections at present that cover items from pre-historic era, archeological, ethnographical, arts, numismatic and heraldic as well as collections of ceramics, geographical,and historical relics.