The Herat National Museum occupies part of the restored citadel complex and focuses on the history of western Afghanistan from prehistoric times through the Islamic period. The collection was severely damaged during the wars of the 1990s — much was looted or destroyed — but reconstruction efforts over the following decades have assembled a meaningful collection: Bronze Age pottery, Hellenistic coins from the Bactrian period, Islamic ceramics and metalwork, and Timurid-era manuscripts and miniature paintings.
The museum gives context to the extraordinary architectural heritage visible elsewhere in the city: seeing the fragments of tilework and stucco here makes the scale of what was lost during successive conflicts more comprehensible. It is worth an hour before or after visiting the citadel walls.