The Period of the Republic of Turkey – Chapter 2
These works include those in places like Topkapi Palace and the Konya Mevlana Museum which was turned into museums together with the objects inside them, those obtained from the General Directorate of Trusts, and those from archaeological excavations and donations. In recent years museums have been buying objects with the Money provided by their budgets. Besides this, the museums have obtained objects confiscated from illegal excavations and smugglers, and those discovered by treasure hunters. According to the statistics of 1973, Turkish museums are visited by 2,939,206 Turks, and 2,460,042 foreigners every year, and these figures are increasing year by year.
Types of Museums:
1 – Archaeological Museums: These museums exhibit the works of thousands of years of history, from the Anatolian prehistoric period to the end of the Byzantine period, and classify the findings of excavations. They include the archaeological museums of Ankara, Istanbul, Izmir, Konya, Antalya, Adana, and Bursa. Most of the provincial museums include both archaeological and ethnographic sections.
2 – Historical, Art History and Ethnographical Museums: These museums mostly contain cultural and artworks of the Anatolian Seljuk, Beylik and Ottoman periods. They include Topkapi Palace, the Istanbul Museum of Turkish and Islamic Art, the Trusts, the Mevlana Museum in Konya, and the Ankara Ethnographical Museum.
3 -Monuments: Certain historical monUments of architectural value have been opened to the public as museums. These include Saint Sophia and Kariye Mosque in Istanbul, Ataturk’s Mausoleum in Ankara, and the Martyrs Monument in Canakkale.
4 – Historical Museums: These are the museums which record important events and leaders in Turkish history, such as the Turkish War of Liberation and Ataturk and his Reforms. These include the Ataturk museums, the Museum of the Turkish Grand National Assembly in Ankara, the Museum of the Armistice of Mudania, the Gokalp Museum’ in Diyarbak’in’, and the House of Tevfi‘k Fikret in Istanbul.
5 – Buildings: These are buildings and houses of architectural and historical interest.They include the Cakisaga Mansion in Birgi, Murad House in Bursa, and Semaki House in Yenisehir. As well as these, several institutions and trade organizations have established museums which record the history of their own field, such as the Military Museum, the Naval Museum, the State Railway Museum, and the Police Museum. Particularly in the last few years, Turkish museums have made great steps towards coming up to modern world museum standards. In the last ten years, more than thirty museums have been moved to modern buildings, and the construction of several new museum buildings has begun. Those museums located in historical buildings have been restored. At the same time, there has been a huge increase in the number of visitors to the museums, which, have developed as cultural institutions of educational and touristic value, rather than just as places to preserve antiquities.
