Georgian National Museum - Simon Janashia Museum of Georgia

The Simon Janashia Museum of Georgia, part of the Georgian National Museum, stands at 3 Shota Rustaveli Avenue in central Tbilisi and presents the country's archaeology, history and ethnography from prehistory to the modern era. The building, completed in the early twentieth century, holds galleries arranged roughly in chronological order. The best-known display is the Archaeological Treasury, a dim, secure gallery of gold and silver objects from Georgian burial sites, including jewellery and ceremonial items from the Colchis culture of the Black Sea coast and from the Trialeti kurgans. Other galleries cover the Dmanisi finds, which include some of the earliest human fossils found outside Africa, dated to about 1.8 million years ago, and artefacts from the Bronze and Iron Ages, early Christian Georgia and the medieval kingdoms. A separate section, the Soviet Occupation exhibition, is included in the main ticket. It documents the Red Army invasion of 1921 and the decades that followed, through documents, photographs and a reconstructed cell, and gives visitors context for modern Georgian history. Visitors should plan two to three hours for the full route, and a first-time visit can easily be focused on the Treasury and the Dmanisi gallery if time is short. Labels are in Georgian and English, and guided tours can be arranged at the ticket office. Crowds are lightest in the first hour after opening on weekday mornings, while school groups and tour parties arrive around late morning. The museum sits near Freedom Square, the Art Museum of Georgia and Rustaveli metro station, so it combines easily with other stops on Rustaveli Avenue. The museum is closed on Mondays, and last tickets are sold around 5:30PM. The ticket price covers the main galleries and the Soviet Occupation hall.