Museums and a Mosque ~ Nivea Walker

Today we went to The Museum of Anatolian Civilizations. Reconstruction began in 1921 and was finished and open to the public as a museum in 1954. Directly outside of the museum there are goats. The goats represent the buildings history of originally being a wool bazar in the fifteenth century. In 1997 the museum was given the European Museum of the Year Award. 

The museum consists of 14 different sections. The sections span across all of history from the Paleolithic Age to the Classic Age. The historic pieces are presented in a variety of ways. Some are placed inside reconstructions to depict how they would have been used or made, while others are placed on shelves along with similar artifacts from the same time period. 

One of the many exhibits in the museum was the Çatalhöyük house. These type of homes were built during the Neolithic age. What is interesting about them is that they had doors on the roof so they were underground houses. They also would bury their family members here after they died with the belief that if they were buried inside the home they would be protected in their next life.

Another exhibit was a collection of cuneiform tablets from the Anatolians. These tablets were first introduced to the Anatolians through Assyrian merchants who used the tablets to document their trading. Soon after this Anatolians learned to read and create these tablets and they began using them to record various important documentation including marriage and divorce.   

Next we went to the Turkish National Assembly Museum. Here on April 23,1920 (an assembly hall at the time)Atatürk addressed the Turkish people initiating the war for independence. Currently there are 600 National Assembly members all of whom work in the new Assembly building. Today this museum is visited largely by Turkish students on field trips as they learn about their country’s history and government. 

Following the National Assembly Museum half of our group when to the Kocatepe Mosque. Here we walked around the inside and outside of the mosque admiring the great detail that was put into to construct the building. After the mosque and a lunch break a smaller group went to the Ankara Painting and Sculpture Museum. The art museum was made up of a variety 

of Turkish art predominately from the twentieth century. The art here provides a more modern take on Turkey which is different from the places we previously visited.

Kocatepe Mosque 

Ankara Painting and Sculpture Museum