National Museum  of Galle

The Galle National Museum (Galle National Museum) is one of Sri Lanka’s national museums. It is housed in the Galle fort’s oldest remaining Dutch building, Galle, a single-story colonnaded Dutch building built in 1656 as the commissariat store for the Dutch garrison. It was later used as a billiards room for the adjacent New Oriental Hotel (now the Amangalla Hotel). The Department of National Museums renovated the structure, which reopened on March 31, 1986.

The museum only has a few exhibits from the Portuguese, Dutch, and British eras. The first gallery houses collections relating to the area’s cottage industries, specifically turtle shell jewellery manufacturing, Beeralu lace weaving, and traditional wooden mask carving. The second room houses a collection of Dutch-era furniture and weapons. On September 10, 2013, the final gallery, the ‘Sri Lanka China Friendship Gallery,’ opened. It is dedicated to the historical and archeological evidence of China-Sri Lanka trade relations, with exhibits on the Chinese Buddhist monk Faxian (337 – c. 422 CE) and the 14th Century Fleet Admiral Zheng He (1371 – 1433).