ISAC Museum

Visit the Museum

A different kind of museum-going experience

  • Museum Hours:
    • Tuesday–Thursday, Saturday–Sunday, 10:00am–4:00pm
    • Friday, 10:00am–8:00pm
    • Upcoming closures: The Persian Gallery will be closed October 8–10, 2024.
       
  • Individuals: 
    • No reservation required. 
    • Suggested Admission Fee (payable at entry): Adults $10, Children (12 & under) $5.
       
  • Adult & Family Group Visits:
    • Includes Groups of 10 or more; Groups led by their own guide. Groups of 10 or more individuals - both private and public -  must register and pay for a visit to the ISAC Museum. The payment and registration for groups assists ISAC in ensuring that the galleries are adequately staffed on the day of your visit. We ask that groups of 10 or more register at least 48 hours in advance. If you are an unregistered group of 10 or more you will be charged per-person fees to visit the galleries.
    • Click here for more information and to register.
       
  • School & Youth Group Visits:
  • Members: Admission is always free for Members and the UChicago community (students, faculty, and staff with UChicago ID) and their guests; if you're not yet a member, become one today.

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Mesopotamian temple statues and gifts in the Mesopotamian Gallery

The world-renowned ISAC Museum aims to understand, reveal, and protect the past.

Right at 58th and University is one of the world’s greatest centers for understanding the story of our lives as humans together; envisioned as a “laboratory for the study of the rise and development of civilization,” ISAC is the University of Chicago’s—and one of the world’s—very first interdisciplinary institutes. The ISAC Museum houses some 350,000 artifacts, excavated mainly by ISAC archaeologists, and includes a comprehensive archive that documents our fieldwork and other research. Together, the ISAC Museum collections comprise one of the best resources in the world for the archaeology, art, history, and languages of West Asia and North Africa, allowing us to understand, reveal, and protect the past.

The ISAC Museum displays objects recovered by ISAC excavations in permanent galleries devoted to ancient Egypt, Nubia, Persia, Mesopotamia, Syria, Anatolia, and the Levant, as well as rotating special exhibitions. As you explore these galleries, you’ll discover how people thousands of years ago forged a collective identity—confronting, as we do today, issues of autonomy, diversity, and unity. We start here. Whether you’re a current, aspiring, or amateur archeologist, artist, humanist, scientist, historian, philosopher, or linguist, we invite you to visit and learn about the beginnings of our lives as humans, together.

ISAC BY THE NUMBERS

350,000

approximate number of artifacts in the collection, primarily excavated by ISAC archaeologists

5,000

approximate number of artifacts on display

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Colossal statue of king Tutankhamun

ISAC Museum Special Exhibitions

Chicago on the Nile: 100 Years of the Epigraphic Survey in Egypt (September 17, 2024–March 23, 2025)

Contemporary Art Installations (ongoing)


ISAC Museum Shop Hours

  • Wednesday, Saturday–Sunday, 10:00am–4:00pm 
  • Friday, 10:00am–6:00pm


Visit the Museum Shop online.


Support ISAC!

Your donation helps keep the galleries open and free to the general public. Make a gift today! To support ISAC scholarship and fieldwork year round, become a member.
 

Photography Policy

Photography is permitted in the museum galleries. Use of tripods, monopods, selfie sticks, or additional lighting units, however, is not permitted. To request publication-quality image files from our Digital Archives (including object, exhibition, and archival photographs and illustrations) and to obtain permission for publication, visit Photo Requests and Permissions.
 

Sketching Policy

Visitors and groups may only use pencil and must have a notebook or clipboard to use. Leaning on cases is not permitted.
 

Items Not Permitted in the Galleries

Food or drinks, backpacks, umbrellas, parcels or bags larger than 11”x13”, and e-cigarettes and vaporizers. Also, please refrain from talking on any cellular devices while inside the galleries.
 

Parking

For information on parking around campus, please visit the University of Chicago Visitor Parking webpage. 
 

Accessibility

Please visit our Accessibility webpage.