Bali Shell Museum

BALI SHELL MUSEUM

"This shell museum deserves for being kept continually! Human must always appreciate THE MASTER PIECE OF THIS NATURE. Only by loving and closing to the nature - including these SHELL creatures, we participate in keeping and preserving the NATURE it self."

-Ibu Mega, Indonesian 5th President-

Bali Shell Museum, which opened in 2009 as the only establishment in the Indonesian archipelago that houses shell varieties of unimaginable shapes and sizes, including 100-year-old fossilized specimens and items converted into fine art. It gathers a vast collection of seashells from Indonesia and all over the world, there are around 10,000 shells and over 100 ancient fossils housed under its roof – the result of dedication and a lifelong passion of its founder. Whether you’re a oncologist or not, the Bali Shell Museum will keep you amused and amazed for hours.

The first floor is a gorgeously laid out gallery with a trove of lamps, home ware and accessories from shells and mother-of-pearl, and it’s where most of the exquisite items here are available for purchase. Move up to the second floor, the collection expands to display ancient fossils of all sorts and sizes, including extinct Madagascan cephalopods estimated to be over 300,000,000 years old. These, with large specimens of extinct marine invertebrates, ammonites, trilobites and a giant fossil with a diameter that exceeds your arm span (said to be Asia’s largest) make this part of the museum the equivalent of a walk through the triceratops and brontosaurus section of a palaeontology museum. On the third floor there’s even more colourful and exotic shells to admire, with specimens comprising sea urchins, a multitude of preserved sea creatures including starfish, sharks, and the small and shiny Monetaria moneta or money cowry, which, as its name implies, once served as money in ancient times. Several glass displays containing the neatly arranged shells look like aquariums – without the water.

To visit Bali Shell Museum

Opening Hours: 09:30 – 21:30 

Location: Jalan Sunset Road 819, Kuta 
Tel: +62 (0)361 752 932