Aceh State Museum

The Aceh State Museum is a place that you should not miss when you stop in Banda Aceh. Located on Jalan Alauddin Mahmud Syah, Banda Aceh, this museum stores various traits left by the history of Acehnese society since the prehistoric era. Here we can find various types of tools, agricultural equipment, household appliances, traditional weapons and traditional clothing. In this museum we can also find various collections of ancient manuscripts, documentation of historical photographs and models of the development of the Baiturrahman Great Mosque.

This museum was founded during the reign of the Dutch East Indies. The inauguration was held on July 31, 1915, by the Governor of Civil and Military Aceh General H.N.A Swart. The museum is headed by FW Stammeshaus who served as Head of Museum as well as Curator until 1931. At that time, the museum was only in the form of a traditional Aceh house (Rumoh Aceh) whose existence was still maintained in the area of ​​the museum yard to date. This wood-based building is in the form of a stilt house with a post construction system that can be assembled flexibly.

Rumoh Aceh was previously shown in the Colonial Exhibition (De Koloniale Tentoonsteling) which took place in Semarang the previous year. In the exhibition, most collections in the Aceh Pavilion were private collections of Stammeshaus plus various collections of heirlooms from the Aceh Sultanate. In this exhibition, Rumoh Aceh won the award as the best Pavilion with the acquisition of 4 gold medals, 11 silver medals and 3 bronzes for various categories.

Among the collections that are quite popular from this museum are a bell that has reached 1400 years. This bell is called the 'Donya Chakra Bell' which is a gift from the Chinese Emperor of the Ming Dynasty to the Sultan of Pasai in the 15th Century, which was presented during the journey of Admiral Muhammad Cheng Ho. This bell was brought to Aceh when Sultan Ali Mughayat Shah of the Aceh Sultanate conquered Pasai in 1524 AD