The interface between cultural heritage and tourism involves complex sensitivities that require multi-dimensional approaches to traverse. This discourse combines the methods of qualitative investigation and of interpretative analysis of sources to interrogate the place of myth, semiotics and historical inertia in the stone images of the National museum, Esie in Kwara State, Nigeria, as a cultural heritage tourism attraction. The discourse argues for prioritising the anthropocentric dimensions of cultural heritage tourism over the material and economic gains for greater sustainability. Secondly, that tourists, researchers and tourism operators appreciate the spatial and anthropological trajectories of myths of cultural heritage for a meaningful engagement with them. Thirdly, that semiotic interchange enriches the values of heritage contents through cross-cultural comparisons and encounters that also accentuate our universal humanity. Finally, that while historical inertia may insulate cultural heritage products from undesirable and exploitative transformation processes, it could also segregate them from contemporary social realities thereby reducing them to morbid cultural fossils.