Adityawarman Museum, A Trace of West Sumatra's Cultural Heritage

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In addition to its natural and culinary attractions, West Sumatra also has several educational and cultural attractions that are also worth visiting. Of the many educational attractions, the Adityawarman Museum is the main reference that you must visit.

This museum is one of the most important museums that highlights the history of the Minangkabau people and their cultural heritage from prehistoric times to the modern era. Here we can get to know the various knick-knacks of the life of the Minang people from the collections they have.

Adityawarman Museum is located at Jalan Diponegoro No. 10, Belakang Tangsi Village, Padang Barat Subdistrict, Padang City. Standing in the middle of 2.6 hectares of land, the museum with a building area of around 2,855 square meters was built by taking architectural inspiration from bagonjong houses or Gadang houses which are characteristic of traditional Minangkabau architectural styles.

The bagonjong house itself is a house on stilts with a roof that mimics the shape of stacked buffalo horns. The number of gonjongs on the roof of this museum itself totals seven shoots.

The museum was built in 1974, as a center for the preservation of historical objects that include Minangkabau cultural heritage, Mentawai cultural heritage, and in general the cultural heritage of the archipelago. The inauguration itself was held on March 16, 1977, by the then Minister of Education and Culture, Prof. Dr. Sjarif Thayeb.

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On May 28, 1979, the museum was officially named 'Adityawarman'. The museum was named after one of the kings who ruled Minangkabau between 1347-1375 AD. In the historical review, King Adityawarman was one of the Minangkabau kings who came from the Majapahit royal line.

King Adityawarman himself is thought to have ruled in the same era as the historical period when Gajah Mada served as Mahapatih (1334-1364 AD).

The museum has quite diverse historical references on various aspects of Minangkabau and West Sumatra culture. There are more than 6000 collections of cultural relics, which are divided into 10 collection categories.

The collection categories are Geology/Geography, Biology, Ethnography, Archaeology, History, Numismatics/Heraldics, Philology, Ceramics, Fine Arts, and Technology.

Among these collections are collections of traditional types of jewelry, fashion trinkets, musical instruments, replicas of typical culinary offerings in various traditional ceremonies, and various tools used in the daily life of traditional Minangkabau people.