Baku, March 19, AZERTAC

There are more than 250 public and private museums in Azerbaijan, where unique cultural and material samples of the country are preserved.

The National Museum of History of Azerbaijan, which is one of the biggest museums of the Caucasus, is situated in the mansion of prominent Azerbaijani industrial magnate and philanthropist Haji Zeynalabdin Taghiyev. The building was constructed in 1895-1896.

Ten funds of the museum contain more than 250,000 exhibits.

The museum collection of archaeological fund has about 22,000 exhibits that are mainly stone and obsidian instruments of labour of the epochs of Paleolith, Mesolite and late Stone Age; household objects made of copper, bronze, iron, examples of clay and china ware, jewellery.

One of the main positions among them belong to the fragment of a fossil man's lower jaw found in the Azikh cave not far from the city of Fuzuli – the man called nowadays “azikhantrop” that is estimated to have lived 300-350 thousand years ago.

The numismatic fund of the museum has more than 150,000 coins belonging to different historical periods.

It is an exceptionally important material for studying history of the country, covering more than 2,000 years, the whole history of coining and currency in Azerbaijan.

Here, coins of various periods are preserved - coins of Alexander the Great, those of some Hellenistic countries (Selevkia, Parthia, Bactria, Ponta etc.); coins of great antique centers - Athens, Rome; coins of the period of the Arabic caliphate, period of feudal countries, as well as coins of Shirvanshahs.

In ancient Azerbaijan (in Atropatena and Caucasian Albania) silver coins were already minted for the first time in III century B.C. At the period of Early Middle Ages, the cities of Nakhchivan, Baku, Barda and some others start to coin their own money.

Moreover, the fund also has a good collection of medals, various signs, banknote, seals, postage stamps etc.

The ethnographic fund has in its collection about 9000 exhibits. These are examples of ware, clothes, as well as a rich collection of carpets and carpet goods. The richly decorated ware and jewellery point to prosperity of various types of crafts and high artistic taste of the masters.

The arm collection, the main part of which is the oriental type of arms, has over six hundred exhibits of various epochs and peoples. The central position in this collection belongs to cold steel and fire-arms of the Caucasus, which is, according to the quality and quantity of the exhibits, one of the biggest collections of Caucasian arms.

In 2020, the National Museum of Azerbaijan History was included in the list of top 10 best history museums of the CIS.