The first stage of the Adana Museum Complex, the Archaeology Museum, which is home to archaeological and ethnographical works as well as agricultural and industrial tools and machines, opened on May 18 with a ceremony.
“Today we are unearthing the underground richness of this region,” said Culture and Tourism Minister Nabi Avcı.
“We will display this richness in the second stage. The number of artifacts on the UNESCO World Heritage Tentative List has increased to 72. We also have 16 permanent artifacts on the list. We will discuss the inclusion of the ancient city of Aphrodisias in Aydın at the 41st World Committee Meeting to be held in Poland in July. Göbeklitepe in Şanlıurfa will be our nominee at the next year’s meeting. We are also working for the return of smuggled artifacts,” Avcı added.
He said the transformation of the closed factory into a museum is a very good example showing how to protect a country’s history.
“These works are only for the first stage. Ethnography, industry and agriculture museums will be added here in the second stage. This place will also survive the memory of Orhan Kemal, who made great contributions to the promotion of this region. We will establish a unit for him in the museum. When the second stage is done, this will be Turkey’s and the Middle East’s largest museum,” Avcı added.
Once the complex is completely finished, the museum is set to be one of the largest museums in the Middle East. The Archaeology Museum department covers an area of 12,500 square meters out of 68,500 square-meters.
The museum is made up of seven halls depicting the history of mankind with documents, visuals, dioramas and animations.
Sculptures, tombs, steles, altars and busts from prehistoric Hittite, Assyrian, Archaic, Hellenistic, Roman, Eastern Roman, Seljuk and Ottoman periods; various containers made of glass, earth and bronze; earthenware and bronze candles; small ancient-era statuettes, cylinder and stamp seals; glass, bronze and gold jewelries as well as artifacts from the 18th century are on display at the museum.
Among the most significant artifacts on display are the stone sculpture of the Hittite Storm God Tarhun, a stele with the Anatolian hieroglyph inscription, Babylon stele, a bronze male sculpture removed from the sea in Adana’s Karataş district and the Roman-era Anthropoid Tomb and Achilles Tomb.
Source: Hürriyet
Something is not right. This message is just to keep things from messing up down the road