Perak Museum to be turned into archaeological museum to showcase Lenggong Valley

A museum in Ipoh, the state capital of Perak, will be converted into an archaeological museum in anticipation of the inscription of Lenggong Valley as a World Heritage Site. Malaysia had previously proposed the Lenggong Valley, where a large amount of prehistoric sites have been found, for World Heritage listing last year. It is not known if and when a World Heritage listing will be granted.

There is already an archaeological museum at Lenggong, but it is a little out of the way (slightly over an hour from Ipoh). I am a little uneasy over the government official’s description of the museum as a “tourism product”, though.

Darul Ridzuan Museum to be upgraded into Perak Archaeological Museum
Bernama, 31 January 2012

The Perak government has allocated RM100,000 to upgrade Muzium Darul Ridzuan here into the Perak Archaeological Museum in preparation for the Lenggong Valley to be declared a Unesco World Heritage Site.

State Tourism Committee chairman Datuk Hamidah Osman said the allocation was for improving the infrastructure at the museum, including providing more display racks for the archaeological artefacts and upgrading the lighting.

“This project is expected to start in February and the state government has obtained the cooperation of Universiti Sains Malaysia which agreed to hand over the archaeological items found in the Lenggong Valley for free to be exhibited at the museum,” she told reporters, here, yesterday.

Full story here.