The museum allows visitors to take “a short walk” through BiH’s past, from earliest times all the way to the ethnology exhibit, whose interior captures the atmosphere of a traditional city house during the Ottoman period.

The permanent exhibit, Bosnia and Herzegovina in the Middle Ages, takes up three separate halls which contain archaeological pieces dating from the Middle Ages (6th c. to 15th c.). Among the 11,500 items on display, there are some that even adorned the interior of the palace where the royal Kotromanić family resided.

The most valuable item in the museum’s collection is the famous Sarajevo Haggadah, which the Sephardic Jews brought to Sarajevo when they left Spain.

There is also the rich collection in the natural history section which covers both living and non-living worlds, including a skeleton of a bearded vulture, a bird with a giant wingspan which used to fly in the skies above BiH not that long ago.

There is a botanical garden in the central part of the complex, home to more than 3,000 types of plants, including some endemic varieties.

Some of the most representative examples of Bosnian stećci can also be found among the greenery.