Story
The story of Museum of Anatolian Civilizations
Everything you see on display here is less than 5 percent of the collection. It all began on 1 October 1921, when a small "Eti" (Hittite) Museum opened in the Akkale bastion of Ankara's castle.
Conceived at Atatürk's wish as a Hittite museum, it was so cramped that Remzi Oğuz Arık, who once directed it, said it looked less like a museum than an orderly storeroom, and it was open only to scholars. In 1936 Hamit Zübeyir Koşay proposed moving it into two derelict buildings southeast of the castle, the Mahmut Paşa Bedesten and the Kurşunlu Han.
Restoration began in 1938 and continued until 1968. Today, in these two historic buildings in Altındağ, finds from the Hittites and the other civilisations of Anatolia are displayed in chronological order. As you wander the halls, remember you are in the first museum to show Hittite works together.
This story is compiled from Wikipedia and other open sources; dates and numbers are checked against the source. The text is shared under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence. Source ↗
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