Orissa State Museum

Orissa State Museum Review

Innumerable treasures are hidden within this ill-maintained, poorly manned, and underlabeled sprawling complex, from the Mauryan-period Ashokan lion at the entrance to a room that is full of patachitra (Orissan paintings on silk or cotton cloth). You'll find an especially varied and interesting collection of sculptures dating back to the 3rd century BC, bronzes, coins, copperplate and stone inscriptions, armaments, musical instruments, handicrafts, Bronze Age tools, natural history exhibits (somewhat tattered and best avoided), and dioramas of tribal and jungle life. One room holds—on dusty open shelves—an amazing cache of more than 37,000 palm-leaf manuscripts in six languages, some with Orissan-style paintings; the oldest date back to the 16th century. There is a display of a king's throne room, which, though not that impressive (one would have imagined it to be more sumptuous), is intriguing.