History Museum of Armenia

The History Museum of Armenia occupies a large building at 4 Republic Square in Yerevan, Armenia, and is the country's main museum of archaeology and national history. It was founded in 1919 as the State Museum and later merged with ethnographic collections, and it moved to its current building on Republic Square in the 1930s. The collection includes more than 400,000 objects, spanning the Stone Age to the present. The archaeology halls hold material from Shengavit and other Bronze Age settlements, Urartian bronzes and inscriptions from sites such as Erebuni and Karmir Blur, Hellenistic and Roman-era finds from Artaxata and Garni, and early Christian and medieval objects. Notable exhibits include a leather shoe about 5,500 years old found in the Areni-1 cave, one of the oldest known leather shoes, together with other items from the Areni cave complex. There are also coins, jewellery, weapons, ceramics, carpets and costume, as well as a numismatic collection. The upper floors cover Armenia's medieval history, ethnography and modern history, including the period of the Soviet Union. Exhibits are arranged chronologically, and wall texts are provided in Armenian, Russian and English. The National Gallery of Armenia occupies the same building and shares the entrance, so a combined ticket is common. The building is part of the Tamanian-designed square and is made of tuff. Renovation of galleries has been carried out in stages, and some halls have updated displays while others remain in an older style. The museum is a good introduction to Armenia before visiting sites such as Garni, Khor Virap and Zvartnots. A visit generally takes around two hours, and it is closed on Mondays.