National Museum of BiH

Sarajevo


Bosnia's biggest and best-endowed museum of ancient and natural history is housed in an impressive, purpose-built quadrangle of neoclassical 1913 buildings. It's best known for housing the priceless Sarajevo Haggadah illuminated manuscript, but there's much more to see. Along with the Haggadah, the main building houses extraordinary Greek pottery and Roman mosaics. Behind this, the central courtyard has a pretty little botanical garden and an exceptional collection of medieval stećci (grave-carvings).

Off to one side of the courtyard is the ethnographic wing, where elaborate carved-wood interiors of old Ottoman houses have been reassembled and peopled with manikins in traditional garb. The pinned insects and howling stuffed wolf of the natural history building at the rear of the courtyard won't appeal to all tastes but it's very well presented. Many more examples of stećci sit outside the museum's roadside frontage, visible for free even when the building is closed.