Telangana State Archaeology Museum, Hyderabad

The Telangana State Archaeology Museum is a major Deccan history museum, housed in an Indo-Saracenic heritage building with arches, domes, and early 20th-century decorative details. For tourists, the museum offers a useful introduction to the region’s long history, with collections ranging from ancient Buddhist sites to courtly objects linked with later dynasties.

One of the museum’s best-known exhibits is the Egyptian mummy known as Princess Naishu. Modern CT scans showed rare preservation details, including brain remains inside the skull. They also corrected her estimated age to about 24–25, rather than a teenager. The mummy was bought in Egypt in 1920 by Nazeer Nawaz Jung for 1,000 British pounds and later gifted to the royal family.

The museum also contains life-size copies of Ajanta Cave frescoes, commissioned under the Nizam to help preserve the appearance of paintings that were already fading. Other notable exhibits include Buddhist relics, rare manuscripts, coins, sculptures, arms, and decorative objects. Its manuscript gallery includes a Holy Quran copy with Shah Jahan’s seal. In 2008, thieves stole several artifacts, including a Nizam-era royal sword.