The South Sumatra Museum consists of two smaller museums, Balaputera Dewa and Sriwijaya. This museum is more popularly known as Balaputera Dewa Museum.
Balaputera Dewa Museum is a public museum which stores and maintains historical and cultural objects. Balaputra Dewa is the name of a Sriwijaya king. This 23,565 square meter (5.8 acres) museum has 3,715 collections consisting 16 geological, 26 biological, 2,073 ethnographical, 87 archaeological, 37 historical, 456 numismatic, 29 philological, and 221 ceramologic collections; and 55 art objects, and 15 modern technological collections.
The Balaputera Dewa Museum also has collections of Limas and Ulu traditional houses, and statue wards. The Sriwijaya Museum is a special museum for historical objects of the Sriwijaya kingdom which lasted from the 7th to 13th centuries. It has 191 collections.