Archaeological Museum, Aihole

The Archaeological Museum, Aihole is located within the Durga Temple complex in Aihole village, Bagalkot district, Karnataka. It was originally set up in 1970 as a sculpture shed to collect artifacts recovered from excavations in and around Aihole, and was converted into a full-fledged museum in 1987, with further extension in 2000.

The museum comprises six interior galleries and an open-air gallery, housing 381 antiquities dated from the 6th to the 15th century CE, including stone sculptures of Brahmanical, Jain, and Buddhist affiliation, architectural fragments, inscriptions, hero stones, and sati stones. Highlights include an Ambika image, a Kalabhairava sculpture, and a scaled valley model showing the layout of Aihole's more than 120 monuments. The museum also screens trilingual audio-visual presentations on the political history and architecture of the Aihole-Badami-Pattadakal region.