Though the building and its empty corridors feel much too large for the contents within, this museum has some beautifully displayed works, particularly from the Bagan period, with lovely 11th-century jewellery, replicas of colourful mural paintings and models of architecturally stunning temples.
Exhibitions cover a huge swathe of history: important fossils (such as 40-million-year-old anthropoid jawbones that lend credence to the theory that human ancestors evolved from primates in Asia rather than Africa); Stone Age tools; small figurines of minstrels from Sri-Ksetra (early evidence of musical culture in the region); and intriguing landscape paintings and portraits by 20th-century Myanmar artists.