The Archaeological Museum, Aihole is located within the Durga Temple complex in Aihole village in the district of Bagalkot, Karnataka State. It was originally planned as a sculpture shed in the year 1970 to collect and exhibit the sculptures, inscriptions, and architectural members found during exploration/excavation and scientific debris clearance in and around Aihole. It was converted into a full-fledged Museum in the year 1987, and extended in the year 2000. The museum houses 381 antiquities mainly comprises of stone sculptures of Brahmanical, Jaina and Buddhist faith, fragmentary carved architectural members, inscriptions, hero stones, sati stones, etc. Period wise they range in date from 6th century CE to 15th century CE. The museum divided into six galleries and an open air gallery. Out of 381 antiquites, 145 are displayed in six galleries inside the museum and open Air gallery.
The huge open-air gallery organized in front of the Museum building welcomes the visitors to the museum. More than forty sculptures comprising mainly Herostones, Ganesh, Saptamatrikas, seated figures in the Chaitya arch, Jainas sculptures, Naga and Nagini figures datable from 7th to 10th centuries of the Chalukyas of Badami and the Rashtrakutas, are displayed. After entering into the museum building, the magnificent image of Ambika is seen in the first gallery besides a seated Buddha, Jaina, Lakulisa, Matrikas and Ganesha. The right side entrance leads to the gallery- 2 & 3 in which, Shiva as ardhanariswara, standing Vishnu, Matrikas, and Dwarapalakas are displayed. The noteworthy in the gallery No. 3 is the huge size image of Kalabhairava. Gallery No. 4 houses a valley model of Aihole village, which shows in a cluster of the present location of the village Aihole and the number of monuments in and around Aihole in the birds eye view. The preservation works of the Aihole monuments are shown in the trans-slides boxes around the valley model. Trilingual audio, video & document film containing information about political history, art and architecture of Aihole, Badami, Pattadakal are available in the museum.
The museum also has departmental publication sales counter and a reference library with good collection of books of history art and architecture.

Entrance Fee Rs. 5/- per head (free for Children up to 15 years)
Time: from 09.00 AM to 5.00.PM.
(CLOSED ON FRIDAY)

Contact Details:

Shri R.N.Kumaran
Assistant Superintending Archaeologist
Archaeological Museum,
Archaeological Survey of India,
Aihole – 587124
Ph: 08351-284551
e-mail: mus.aihole@gmail.com

Shri Sharad Goswami
Assistant Archaeologist