You could spend hours browsing this state-of-the-art museum, but if you're pressed for time don't miss the Armada Room, with artefacts retrieved from the 1588 wreck of the Spanish galleon Girona; the Egyptian Room, with Takabuti, a 2500-year-old Egyptian mummy unwrapped in Belfast in 1835; and the Early Peoples Gallery, with the bronze Bann Disc, a superb example of Celtic design from the Iron Age.
On the ground floor, an overview of local history from 1700 leads to a gallery on the Troubles and Beyond, where exhibits include a bomb disposal robot. On the 1st floor, a spectacular collection of prehistoric stone and bronze artefacts helps to provide a cultural context for Ireland's many archaeological sites. Exhibits include the Malone Hoard, a clutch of 16 polished, Neolithic stone axes discovered only a few kilometres from the museum.
The kid-friendly, interactive Nature Zone on the 2nd floor covers geological time, evolution and natural history; highlights include the Snapshot of an Ancient Sea Floor, a fossilised portion of a 200-million-year-old seabed with jumbled ammonite shells and petrified driftwood.
The top floors are given over to Irish and European art, most notably the works of Belfast-born Sir John Lavery (1856–1941).