A museum is a building or institution which houses a collection of artifacts.
Museums collect and care for objects of scientific, artistic, or historical importance and make them available for public viewing through exhibits that may be permanent or temporary. Most large museums are located in major cities throughout the world and more local ones exist in smaller cities, towns and even the countryside.
Early museums began as the private collections of wealthy individuals, families or institutions of art and rare or curious natural objects and artifacts.
There are museums all over the world. The museums of ancient times, such as the Musaeum of Alexandria, would be equivalent to a modern graduate institute. The modern meaning of the word can be traced to the Museum of Pergamon in Anatolia, which displayed artwork.