The museum was founded in 1975 and is a unit of the Nara National Research Institute for Cultural Properties.

[3] The Asuka Historical Museum is a repository of materials excavated by the Department of Imperial Palace Sites Investigations of the Nara National Research Institute for Cultural Properties.

Exhibit Hall 1 focuses on materials associated with the Asuka Palace and the Soga clan, along with Asuka-dera, Kawara-dera, and the Takamatsuzuka and Kitora tumuli.

[4] The gardens of the museum house reproductions of large-scale rock carvings and statues from the Asuka period.

[2] The museum facility is a concrete structure built in the sukiya-zukuri Japanese residential architectural style.