Aksaray Museum
The Aksaray Museum ( Turkish Aksaray Müzesi ) is an archaeological museum in the central Turkish city of Aksaray in the province of the same name . It is located on Aksaray Otogar Yolu, which runs parallel to Konya Caddesi , the 90 European route that runs through the town . It houses finds from the excavation sites in the area and from all eras from prehistoric to Ottoman times.
history
The first archaeological museum of Aksaray opened in 1969 in the Zinciriye Medrese in the center of the city. In 2006 the collection moved to the newly constructed building. After a renovation and reorganization of the collection from 2012 onwards, it was reopened in 2016. According to the museum's own description, the new building is inspired by Seljuk architecture and the Cappadocian fairy chimneys .
construction
The museum building is three-storey and has an area of 2,400 square meters, plus the outdoor area with 10,200 square meters. The five archaeological exhibition rooms are located on the ground floor, an ethnographic room is set up on the first floor, next to it there is the administration area and a conference room. The second floor houses the museum archive.
In the first of the archaeological exhibition rooms, Gallery I, finds from prehistoric times are presented, from the nearby Hasan Dağı and mainly from the settlement hill Aşıklı Höyük , which is about 25 kilometers southeast of the city. They are over 10,000 years old and come from the pre-ceramic Stone Age , including flint and obsidian tools , bone jewelry and the 9,500 year old skull of a young woman that shows traces of trepanation . In Gallery II pieces from the early Neolithic and Chalcolithic settlements of Musular and Güvercinkayası are on display. The latter is located in the area of the Mamasın reservoir , about ten kilometers east of Aksaray, and has been explored since 1996 in the course of rescue excavations. The settlement mound from the Middle Copper Age , the 6th millennium BC. BC, exemplifies the transition from peasant culture to fortified place. Pieces of stone, bone and obsidian as well as ceramics, including figurines in animal and human form were found. The artifacts on display from Musular, which is only a few hundred meters away from Aşıklı Höyük, are similar to those there, plus ceramics, which were still missing there.
The Acemhöyük Sieldungshügel , 15 kilometers west of Aksaray, to which Gallery III is dedicated, was inhabited from the Early Bronze Age to the Hellenistic era. In addition to pithoi, the excavations unearthed objects made of stone, bone, glass, silver and terracotta . In Gallery IV finds from the Iron Age , Hellenism, Roman and Byzantine times up to the Seljuk era are collected and arranged chronologically. The showpiece is the fragment of the late Hittite stele of Aksaray found in the urban area . The lower half of a representation of the Luwian weather god is preserved , the back and the narrow sides are inscribed with Luwian hieroglyphs . Its author is King Kiyakiyas of Šinuḫtu , who lived in the late 8th century BC. Ruled. The museum's coin collection is in the same room.
Gallery V shows mummies from the 10th to 13th centuries AD, which were found in Aksaray, in the Çanlı Kilise , a rock church ten kilometers southeast of Aksaray, and the Ihlara Valley . Among them are the remains of adults and children, including a mummified cat. Related jewelry and clothing can also be seen. Finally, Gallery VI on the upper floor houses the ethnographic exhibition with handicrafts and model scenes.
In the museum's extensive garden there are stone and terracotta finds, including a rich collection of pithoi and numerous grave steles from all eras.
Finds from Acemhöyük
Gallery IV
Aksaray stele
Child mummy
Collection of grave steles in the outdoor area
Web links
- Aksaray Müze Müdürlüğü (Turkish)
- Aksaray Museum - Aksaray
- Aksaray Museum home to Cappadocia history Hürriyet Daily News April 15, 2014, accessed August 7, 2016
Individual evidence
- ↑ Museum brochure
- ^ John David Hawkins : Corpus of Hieroglyphic Luwian Inscriptions. Volume I: Inscriptions of the Iron Age. Part 2: text. Amuq, Aleppo, Hama, Tabal, Assur Letters, Miscellaneous, Seals, Indices. (= Studies in Indo-European Language and Culture 8). de Gruyter, Berlin et al. 2000, ISBN 3-11-010864-X . P. 473
Coordinates: 38 ° 21 ′ 37.7 " N , 33 ° 59 ′ 38.8" E