Diyarbakir City Museums,
Plans to establish a museum in Diyarbakir were first made before the time of the Republic, and stone works were stored in Sincariye Medrese. Organization of Diyarbakir Museum began in 1940 and the museum was opened to the public in 1944. Today there are four museums in Diyarbakir.
Diyarbakir Archaeology and Ethnographic Museum: This was opened in 1944 in Sincariye Medrese. The Medrese was built in 1198 in the period of Artuko6ullari. The Medrese, which consists of a barrel vaulted courtyard surrounded by 14 rooms and 1 exedra in front of which is a colonnade, has been repaired from time to time. The exedra has been divided off with a glass partition and turned into the Museum. Office. In the courtyard and rooms of the Medrese are exhibited works from the Assyrian, Hittite, Roman, Byzantine, Artuk, and Ottoman periods, from Diyarbakir and its surrounding area. Among the most significant items in the museum are Roman period gravestones, statues and building stones, Artuk tiles, wooden objects from the Ottoman period, weapons, objects from Dervish tekkes (monasteries), coins and canonical records, and ethnographical works. The museum also has a library.
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Ziya Gokalp Museum:
In 1962 the house where Turkish philosopher and thinker Ziya Gokalp, (d. 1924) was born, was turned into a museum and opened to the public. The Ziya Gokalp Museum, which is an old two storied Diyarbakir house with a courtyard, contains Ziya Gokalp’s books, his manuscripts, some of his possessions, magazines which he wrote or edited, newspapers in which articles by him were published, photographs of himself and his family and documents.
Cahit Sitki Taranci Culture Museum:
The house in which famous poet, Cahit Sitki Taranci (d. 1956), was born, was turned into a museum in 1973. The museum, which is an old Diyarbakir house, contains Gahit Sitki’s books, his manuscripts, some of his possessions, photographs, and various souvenirs.
Diyarbakir Ataturk House:
Ataturk stayed in Diyarbakir for short periods while he was 16th Army Corps Commander, from 1916- 1917, and he also stayed for one night on November 15, 1937, when he was President. At the time of his first visits, he stayed in Semanoglu House 2.5 km south of the walls of Diyarbakir, which he used as a headquarters.
Semanoglu House which is built in the unique architectural style of Diyarbakir with a courtyard and exedra was constructed at the end of the nineteenth century. After the Republic, the House, Which was the property of the Treasury, was repaired by Diyarbakir Municipality in 1939 and given the name Ataturk House.
On the north side of the house, which is covered with black and white narrow cut stone is a pointed arched exedra. The south wall of the has a fountain on it from which water falls into the pond in the center. To the right is the kitchen, to the left a tea room, and in the second-floor rooms and a terrace.
