MUSEUMS
OF ADANA
Adana Museum was first founded in 1924 in the Cafer
Pasha Medrese. It contained works from the Ottoman period
found in Adana. In time this building became too small
to hold all the objects that were stored and displayed
there. The museum moved to the Church in the neighborhood
of Kurukopru. In 1935 a separate ethnographical hall
was built. In 1960 the municipality for its own use
appropriated this hall. All the objects were gathered
in the Church. In time the objects displayed in the
church and its courtyard increased in number. Adana
Museum became more of a warehouse than a museum. With
the objective of exhibiting the works in a larger and
more modern setting, a new building was constructed
between 1966-1970 in Adana Culture Park. It became the
present Adana Regional Museum.
Today
there are the following museums in the province of Adana
:
Adana
Regional Museum :
As
well as halls of archaeology and ethnography, this museum
includes a conference hall, laboratories, storerooms,
a library and administrative sections.
In
the archaeology hall are exhibited objects discovered
by excavations of settlements and barrows at Gozlukule,
Yumuktepe - Mersin, Misis, Sarkoy, and Karatepe. These
objects are divided into sections in chronological order
of Neolithic, Calcolithic, and Bronze ages, Early Hittite
and Hittite, Urartu, Hellenistic, Roman, and Byzantine
periods. There are also a small number of works from the
Assyrian and Phoenician civilizations. The objects on
exhibit include earthenware pots and bowls, lamps and
figurines, cylindrical and circular seals, coins and medallions
from different periods, made of gold silver and copper,
metal objects from the Urartu period, grave steles, statues,
sarcophagi, capital and building stones and inscriptions.
In
the ethnographical rooms of the museum there are iron
objects, clothing, embroidery, ornaments, copper kitchen
utensils, nomad tents, carpets and kilims (woven carpets),
furniture and an upholstered sofa. They are from the Seljuk
and Ottoman periods. Objects from the pre-Islamic and
Islamic periods are displayed in the garden of the museum
together with a nomad tent.
Among
the unique works in the Adana Regional Museum are a statute
of a God wearing a pointed hat made of natural crystal,
dating from the Hittite Empire period, found during excavations
at Gozlukule, a bas-relief stele dating from the Late
Hittite period, made of basalt and depicting a man and
wife, a bronze Adak inscription and Urartu belts brought
from Van and dated at 600 BC, a gold and silver bracelet
decorated with two rams' heads, dating from the 4th Century
BC and found in Mersin, a bas-relief of a man's head made
of limestone dating from the 2nd Century BC Roman period
found in Tarsus, a gold ring depicting a woman's head
dating from the Roman period, and a cornelian stone ring
from the Roman period. Among the sarcophagi at the Adana
Museum, Akileus Sarcophagus is especially worth mentioning.
It is made of marble. It dates from the 2nd Century AD
Roman period.
The
total number of works in the museum exceeds eighteen thousand,
and there is an archive containing 449 volumes of canonical
records.
The
Karatepe Open Air Museum :
Excavations
were carried out at the site of a Late Hittites city in
Karatepe. The walls and gates to the city were uncovered.
The inscribed orthostats and bas-reliefs along the length
of the inner walls were left in place and restored. A
roof supported by concrete columns is built over the works.
Thus the Open Air Museum was established.
The
dark colored basalt bas-relief depicts scenes of feasts,
musicians, a bull being led away, the God of Storm, and
various palace activities. There is Hittite hieroglyphic
writing on the stones. The castle measures 430 m. from
north to south, and 190 m. from east to west. There are
remains of a wall whose breadth varies from 2-4 m., with
towers at 18-20 m. intervals.
The
Misis Mosaic Museum :
Misis
is 27 km. to the east of Adana. An excavation was carried
out on the western side of Misis barrow in 1956. A mosaic
floor of a mosque dating from the 3rd Century AD Late
Roman period was found. After the mosaics had been repaired
and cleaned they were covered with a glass construction.
They were opened to the public as a museum in 1959. The
mosaic depicts the domestic and wild animals, which Noah
took into his ark. Flower and geometric designs enhance
the beauty of the mosaic.
