The World’s First Museum and the World’s First Archaeologists, Lionel Casson, Biblical Archaeology Review (5:1), Jan/Feb 1979

Gate of Ishtar. By Rictor Norton – https://www.flickr.com/photos/24065742@N00/151247206/, CC BY 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=1409322
Since a museum is by definition any “room, building, or locale where a collection of objects is put on exhibition,” whatever part of In-Shushinak’s temple happened to be used qualifies as a sort of museum, one of war trophies—but just barely.
For a museum that approaches what we generally mean by the term, we must go back in time to the first half of the sixth century B.C., to the reign of Nebuchadnezzar II of Babylon.
Read the rest of The World’s First Museum and the World’s First Archaeologists in the online Biblical Archaeology Society Library.
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