Explore Sarajevo / Hidden Gems / National Museum of Bosnia and Herzegovina
Hidden Gem · Marijin Dvor · 4 min read
National Museum of Bosnia and Herzegovina
The oldest museum in the country, founded under Habsburg rule in 1888 — and the building that houses the Sarajevo Haggadah.
- Established
- Opened 1 February 1888
- By
- Karel Pařík (the museum complex, 1909–1913)
Address
Zmaja od Bosne 3, Marijin Dvor
Hours
Typically Tue–Sat 10:00–19:00, Sun 10:00–14:00, closed Mondays. Verify seasonally.
Price
~5 BAM adult; reductions for students. Cash preferred.
Getting there
Tram 1, 3 or 5 to Marijin Dvor; the museum complex is on the south side of Zmaja od Bosne. 10 minutes' walk west from the Eternal Flame.
Time needed
Half a day (3–4 hours) for the four pavilions and the garden. An afternoon for the Haggadah specifically.
Best time
A weekday morning. The Haggadah vault opens at scheduled times within the day — ask at the front desk on arrival.
Coordinates
43.8552° N 18.4042° E
Navigate
The National Museum of Bosnia and Herzegovina (Zemaljski muzej Bosne i Hercegovine) is the country’s oldest and most important museum. It opened on 1 February 1888, in the early years of Austria-Hungary’s administration of Bosnia, when Benjamin von Kállay — the joint Austro-Hungarian Minister of Finance who effectively ran the province — set out to make Sarajevo a cultural capital of the empire. The museum was a major piece of that project. It has not closed in any of the four political systems that have governed the city since — Austro-Hungarian, Royal Yugoslav, Socialist Yugoslav, independent Bosnia and Herzegovina — except for a single funding-driven shutdown between 2012 and 2015, after which it reopened with international support.
The current building complex on Zmaja od Bosne, in the Marijin Dvor neighbourhood about ten minutes’ walk west of the Eternal Flame, was built between 1909 and 1913 to the design of the Czech architect Karel Pařík — the same architect who designed the Ashkenazi Synagogue, the Sacred Heart Cathedral, and most of central Habsburg Sarajevo. The complex is four pavilions arranged around a central botanical courtyard, with a fifth wing added later. It is, architecturally, one of the most coherent Habsburg-era museum buildings in southeastern Europe.
What’s inside
The collection is divided across the four pavilions plus the lower-floor vault:
- Archaeology — Roman-era milestones, mosaics from the Domavia silver-mining settlement near Srebrenica, Illyrian helmets, prehistoric finds from the Butmir Neolithic culture. The Butmir collection — geometrically decorated pottery from around 5000 BCE, excavated near the airport — is internationally significant.
- Ethnology — reconstructed interiors of Bosnian peasant houses and Sarajevo town houses; folk costumes from each of the country’s ethnic and religious communities; everyday objects from rural life in the 19th and early 20th centuries. The reconstructed čardak (Ottoman wooden upper room) is particularly fine.
- Natural history — the regional flora and fauna of the western Balkans; geology and palaeontology; the famous diorama hall with mounted local species.
- The library and manuscript collection — including the Sarajevo Haggadah.
The Haggadah is the museum’s single most famous holding. It lives in a dedicated climate-controlled vault room on the lower floor, opened to the public in December 2002 and renovated in 2018 with French funding. The vault is open for viewing at specific scheduled times within the museum’s day, not continuously — ask at the front desk on arrival. The codex is displayed in a controlled-light case alongside a Catholic missal, an Orthodox Gospel book, and an Islamic Qur’an manuscript from the museum’s own collection. (Our long-form on the manuscript itself is at The Sarajevo Haggadah: a book that has outlived five empires.)
The botanical garden
Between the pavilions sits a small botanical garden of indigenous Bosnian plants, established in 1913 by the museum’s first natural-history curator. It includes specimens of the Bosnian endemic Lilium bosniacum and a small medicinal-plants collection used historically by Bosnian healers. The garden is open to museum visitors at no extra charge; on a warm day, the courtyard is the best place in central Sarajevo to read.
How to use the visit
A half-day is the right amount of time for the full museum. A reasonable order, starting from the front entrance:
- The archaeology pavilion — 45 minutes. Start with the Butmir Neolithic pottery.
- The ethnology pavilion — 45 minutes. The reconstructed čardak is in the second room.
- The botanical garden — 15 minutes between pavilions. Sit on the bench.
- The natural-history pavilion — 30 minutes if you have an interest; ten if you don’t.
- The Haggadah vault — open at scheduled windows; aim for the late-morning slot if available.
The whole sequence runs about three hours at a brisk pace, four at a slow one. Combine with the History Museum of BiH next door, ten minutes’ walk west, for a Marijin Dvor museum morning that gives you the city’s full historical arc — Roman to Habsburg in the National Museum, Habsburg to present in the History Museum.
The café at the front of the National Museum serves Bosnian coffee. Sit in the courtyard with it.
Sources & further reading
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Ph: Desemeus · CC BY-SA 4.0
Hrid / south bank
Ashkenazi Synagogue
Sarajevo's working synagogue, built in 1902 in pseudo-Moorish style by the Austro-Hungarian administration for the Jewish community that had grown rapidly after 1878. Survived the Holocaust as a building, if not as a community. Still active. Friendly to visitors.
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Ph: Julian Nyča · CC BY-SA 3.0
Marijin Dvor / Centar
Avaz Twist Tower
The Avaz Twist Tower is Sarajevo's tallest building (142 metres, completed 2008). A small public observation deck on the 35th floor costs around 5 BAM and gives you the full valley. Skip the café at the top. Take the view.
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Ph: Julian Nyča · CC BY-SA 3.0
Stari Grad
Baščaršija
The 1462 Ottoman bazaar of Sarajevo, still a working bazaar. Copper workshops on Kazandžiluk, Bosnian coffee at Morića Han, and a marker in the pavement where the Ottoman city meets the Habsburg one.
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