INTRODUCTION

Vision & Objectives

You may have visited many interesting places in Sabah; you may have enjoyed the wonderful hospitality of its people, but no visit to Sabah is complete without visiting the Sabah Museum. The Sabah Museum is the most prestigious museum in Sabah and is the State's showcase of its rich cultural heritage and exhibits Sabah's history, culture, social and natural history in one place.

The flagship of the Sabah Museum is the Sabah Museum Complex which is sited on 43.3 acres of lush green natural and planted jungle and is located at Old Palace Hill ( Bukit Istana Lama ) in Kota Kinabalu. This complex is unique in Malaysia as it houses in one place the museum proper, an ethnobotanic garden, a zoological garden and a heritage village.

The main building itself, the architecture of which is inspired by traditional buildings and costumes, comprises of the central exhibition hall and six galleries. In these are located the Islamic Civilization Gallery, the Archaeology and History Gallery, Natural History Gallery, Art Gallery, Ceramic and Brassware Gallery, Traditional Costumes and much more. An annex building is the Science and Education Centre which houses the Geology Gallery, the exhibition on petroleum industry, the exhibition on copper mining in Sabah and a current exhibition on broadcasting technology. Next to the Science Centre is the Multivision Theatre (Wacana Room) and the Sabah Art Gallery which is operated by the Sabah Cultural Board.

The policy at the Sabah Museum is broad-based and has basically remained the same since its establishment in 1965. It collects, preserves, conserves and documents ethnographic, archaeological, historical, numismatic, art-historical, botanical, zoological and mineralogical collections from all over the state, and conducts research on important and interesting aspects of Sabah's history, culture, social and natural history. It is an investment for the future when these artefacts and patterns of behaviour have disappeared or have become obsolete. It provides an important focus of the state's cultural identity. Apart from this, it is Sabah's showcase of its rich cultural heritage for both local people and foreign visitors. At the same time, it aims to educate, inform and entertain visitors through its display and publications about Sabah's rich heritage and the people's place in them. An important part of the museum's responsibilities is to discover, research into and protect historical and archaeological sites and monuments and to control the export of antiquities, which form part of Sabah's cultural identity. The Antiquities and Treasure Trove Enactment 1977 empowers the Sabah Museum to carry out these responsibilities.