The Indian Museum, located in Central Kolkata, West Bengal, India, was originally called the "Imperial Museum of Calcutta" before India gained independence. It was founded in 1814 by the Asiatic Society of Bengal in Kolkata (Calcutta), India. The museum is the oldest and largest museum in India as well as in Asia. It has rare collections of antiques, armor and ornaments, fossils, skeletons, mummies, and Mughal paintings. The museum is also regarded as "the beginning of a significant epoch initiating the socio-cultural and scientific achievements of the country. It is otherwise considered as the beginning of modernity and the end of the medieval era".