Archaeological Site Museum, Sarnath

The Archaeological Site Museum at Sarnath, commonly known as Sarnath Museum, is the oldest site museum of the Archaeological Survey of India. The decision to build a museum adjacent to the excavated Sarnath site was taken in 1904 on the initiative of Sir John Marshall, then Director General of Archaeology in India, with the building designed by consulting architect James Ramsay and completed in 1910. The building itself is planned as half of a monastery (sangharama). It houses 6,832 sculptures and artefacts across five galleries and two verandahs, spanning material from the 3rd century BCE to the 12th century CE recovered from the Sarnath excavations. Its single most celebrated exhibit is the Lion Capital of Ashoka, which was adopted as the national emblem of India, alongside Mauryan, Kushana and Gupta-period sculpture, the earliest known Buddha image found at Sarnath, and Hindu sculptures dating from the 9th to 12th centuries.