The Egmore Museum in Chennai is the second oldest museum in India. It is home to a remarkable collection of stone sculptures, prehistoric artefacts and exquisite bronzes. Carved over 2000 years ago, the Amaravati Marbles are the earliest examples of Buddhist art in the world. In an adjoining bay, 1500-year-old inscriptions hold clues as to how languages evolved. Burial urns and potshards from Keeladi and Adichanallur give us a glimpse into life in ancient Tamil settlements. And the museum’s collection of bronze sculptures from the Chola period is priceless and unmatched.
Lend an ear to their stories and you will experience history like never before. Explore all this and more on this selection of the best stories from the Egmore Museum.
This free audio tour is brought to you thanks to the generous support of Pando. Visit pando.ai to learn more about them.
We thank Tamil Nadu Tourism and the Department of Museums for their support in making this audio tour possible.
Timings
The Egmore Museum is open from 10:30 AM to 6:30 PM, all days of the week (except Fridays). The museum is closed on 3 national holidays - 26 January, 15 August and 2 October and also for Pongal and Deepavali (dates as per the holiday list released by the Tamil Nadu Government). Ticket counters close at 5:00 PM.
Tickets
You will need to purchase a ticket to enter the museum. Ticket prices vary for Indian and foreign visitors. Student discounts are also available, but you must carry a valid student ID to avail them.
The timings and ticket prices are subject to change. Please check the Museum website (www.govtmuseumchennai.org/museum) before your visit.
Useful Links
Egmore Museum: www.govtmuseumchennai.org/museum
MUSEUM
The Egmore Museum is spread across multiple buildings. This trail begins at the Museum Theatre, and then covers the Archaeology galleries, including the Stone sculptures gallery, Copper plates gallery, Amaravati gallery, the Epigraphy section, amongst others. The next stop is the Anthropology building, which houses the Adichanallur gallery, the Indus Valley Civilisation gallery and the Ethnology gallery. The trail concludes at the Bronze gallery building. The museum has many other galleries, including Zoology, Botany, Geology and Numismatics. The National Art Gallery and the Contemporary Art Gallery buildings house many traditional and modern paintings, including works associated with painters like Raja Ravi Varma. The Connemara library is worth visiting for its beautiful Indo-Saracenic architecture, featuring Islamic-style arches, decorative Indian motifs and European planning and symmetry.
PHOTOGRAPHY
Photography is permitted inside the Egmore Museum if you buy a camera ticket.
You can download the Storytrails audio tour from Google Play (for Android devices) or the App Store (for iOS devices). Open the app, search for the Egmore Museum tour, and tap ‘Download’ to save it to your device.
Yes. You can listen to the stories on the tour by scanning the QR codes placed at each location, even without downloading the app. However, this requires an internet connection and your experience may vary depending on the quality of your network connection.
You can listen to the stories in any order. However, we highly recommend following the suggested tour route as closely as possible, as the earlier stories provide context that enriches the experience of the later ones.
The total duration of the stories in the tour is approximately 150 minutes. If you are short on time, you can choose to listen only to the stories marked as highlights, which can be covered in about half the time.
There are also several other galleries in the museum that are not included in this audio tours, so you may want to set aside additional time to explore them as well.
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Navigate the nooks, corners and gullies of Indian history through thirty amazing tales from the Storytrails treasure trove!
