Sinop Archaeological Museum, or Sinop Museum ( tr, Sinop Arkeoloji Müzesi or ''Sinop Müzesi''), is a national

museum A museum ( ; plural museums or, rarely, musea) is a building or institution that cares for and displays a collection of artifacts and other objects of artistic, cultural, historical, or scientific importance. Many public museums make these ...

in Sinop, Turkey, exhibiting

archaeological Archaeology or archeology is the scientific study of human activity through the recovery and analysis of material culture. The archaeological record consists of artifacts, architecture, biofacts or ecofacts, sites, and cultural landscap ...

artifacts found in and around the city.

Background

One of the earliest museum activities in Turkey began in 1921, in Sinop. Artifacts and other objects of historical and cultural importance, found at different locations in the city, were initially conserved in a high school ( ota, Mekteb-i İdadi, script=Latn) building. In 1932, the items were transferred to the ''

Pervane Medrese Pervane Medrese ( tr, Pervane Medresesi) is a historic madrasa, an Islamic school, in Sinop, Turkey. It is situated in the center of the Sinop Peninsula. Another historical building, the Alaaddin Mosque is to the south of the madrasa, across t ...

'', a former religious school, where they formed the core of the Sinop Museum. The building was established as a museum and opened to the public in 1941. In 1947, a museum director was assigned to the site. A joint team of German and Turkish archaeologists, led by Ludwig Budde and

Ekrem Akurgal Ekrem Akurgal (March 30, 1911 – November 1, 2002) was a Turkish archaeologist. During a career that spanned more than fifty years, he conducted definitive research in several sites along the western coast of Anatolia such as Phokaia (Foça), ...

, carried out

excavation Excavation may refer to: * Excavation (archaeology) * Excavation (medicine) * ''Excavation'' (The Haxan Cloak album), 2013 * ''Excavation'' (Ben Monder album), 2000 * ''Excavation'' (novel), a 2000 novel by James Rollins * '' Excavation: A Memo ...

s in the center of Sinop and at Kocagöz Tumulis in Demirciköy between 1951 and 1953. Akurgal proposed the construction of a special museum building in Sinop to hold the numerous artifacts. In 1968, the city municipality donated property in downtown Sinop, which incorporated a

Seljuk Empire The Great Seljuk Empire, or the Seljuk Empire was a high medieval, culturally Turco-Persian tradition, Turko-Persian, Sunni Islam, Sunni Muslim empire, founded and ruled by the Qiniq (tribe), Qïnïq branch of Oghuz Turks. It spanned a total are ...

-era tomb and the ruins of a Serapeum uncovered during the excavations. The two-story museum building, which is located in Okullar Cad. 2, in the center of Sinop, was completed in 1970. A building renovation in 2001 allowed the museum to incorporate modern

museology Museology or museum studies is the study of museums. It explores the history of museums and their role in society, as well as the activities they engage in, including curating, preservation, public programming, and education. Terminology The w ...

concepts. Its re-opening took place in April 2006.

Museum exhibits

Open-air section

The ruin of a Serapeum, a

temple A temple (from the Latin ) is a building reserved for spiritual rituals and activities such as prayer and sacrifice. Religions which erect temples include Christianity (whose temples are typically called churches), Hinduism (whose temples ...

dedicated to the combined

Hellenistic In Classical antiquity, the Hellenistic period covers the time in Mediterranean history after Classical Greece, between the death of Alexander the Great in 323 BC and the emergence of the Roman Empire, as signified by the Battle of Actium in ...

- Ancient Egyptian

deity A deity or god is a supernatural being who is considered divine or sacred. The ''Oxford Dictionary of English'' defines deity as a god or goddess, or anything revered as divine. C. Scott Littleton defines a deity as "a being with powers greate ...

Serapis, is situated in the southwestern corner of the open-air museum section. It was unearthed, on-site, during excavations in 1951. Inside the rectangular temple ruin,

terracotta Terracotta, terra cotta, or terra-cotta (; ; ), in its material sense as an earthenware substrate, is a clay-based ceramic glaze, unglazed or glazed ceramic where the pottery firing, fired body is porous. In applied art, craft, construction, a ...

artifacts, architectural elements and figures of Serapis,

Dionysus In ancient Greek religion and myth, Dionysus (; grc, Διόνυσος ) is the god of the grape-harvest, winemaking, orchards and fruit, vegetation, fertility, insanity, ritual madness, religious ecstasy, festivity, and theatre. The Romans ...

Heracles Heracles ( ; grc-gre, Ἡρακλῆς, , glory/fame of Hera), born Alcaeus (, ''Alkaios'') or Alcides (, ''Alkeidēs''), was a divine hero in Greek mythology, the son of Zeus and Alcmene, and the foster son of Amphitryon.By his adoptive ...

Isis Isis (; ''Ēse''; ; Meroitic: ''Wos'' 'a''or ''Wusa''; Phoenician: 𐤀𐤎, romanized: ʾs) was a major goddess in ancient Egyptian religion whose worship spread throughout the Greco-Roman world. Isis was first mentioned in the Old Kingd ...

and Kore were found. The date of the edifice is unknown, however, an inscription indicates that it was dedicated to Serapis. The Sultana's Tomb ( tr, Sultan Hatun Türbesi), also in the museum yard, is known locally as the "''Aynalı Kadın Türbesi''", (literally: "Tomb of the Lady with Mirror"). According to an inscription attached above the tomb's arched gate, it was constructed in June 1395. It contains three sarcophagi, including one belonging to the daughter of Süleyman Pasha. Pasha was the eldest son of Orhan I, the second

bey Bey ( ota, بك, beğ, script=Arab, tr, bey, az, bəy, tk, beg, uz, бек, kz, би/бек, tt-Cyrl, бәк, translit=bäk, cjs, пий/пек, sq, beu/bej, sh, beg, fa, بیگ, beyg/, tg, бек, ar, بك, bak, gr, μπέης) is ...

of the newly established

Ottoman Empire The Ottoman Empire, * ; is an archaic version. The definite article forms and were synonymous * and el, Оθωμανική Αυτοκρατορία, Othōmanikē Avtokratoria, label=none * info page on book at Martin Luther University) ...

. His daughter, who died in 1395, was the spouse of Candaroğlu bey Süleyman Pasha. The square-plan tomb is constructed of

ashlar Ashlar () is finely dressed (cut, worked) stone, either an individual stone that has been worked until squared, or a structure built from such stones. Ashlar is the finest stone masonry unit, generally rectangular cuboid, mentioned by Vitruv ...

. It is topped with a wooden roof covered with Turkish tiles instead of a dome, compared with buildings of that era, and has windows on three sides. Other exhibits, including architectural elements,

milestone A milestone is a numbered marker placed on a route such as a road, railway line, canal or boundary. They can indicate the distance to towns, cities, and other places or landmarks; or they can give their position on the route relative to so ...

headstone A headstone, tombstone, or gravestone is a stele or marker, usually stone, that is placed over a grave. It is traditional for burials in the Christian, Jewish, and Muslim religions, among others. In most cases, it has the deceased's name, da ...

s, sculptures made of stone or marble, large earthenware jars and mosaics, are on display in the northern part of the yard. Islamic headstones erected to the south and west of the Sultana's Tomb give the impression of a cemetery.

Indoor exhibits

The hallway off of the entrance contains sculptures and busts. A stone inscription featuring an agreement signed between Sinope and Heraclea Pontica (today: Karadeniz Ereğli) in 4th-century BC is also exhibited here. The small artifacts room features utensils, metallic tools, vases, terracotta

figurine A figurine (a diminutive form of the word ''figure'') or statuette is a small, three-dimensional sculpture that represents a human, deity or animal, or, in practice, a pair or small group of them. Figurines have been made in many media, with cl ...

s and architectural elements from the Serapeum, and glassware and artifacts from graves, all displayed in chronological order from the Early Bronze Age (3300–2100 BC) to the end of the

Byzantine Empire The Byzantine Empire, also referred to as the Eastern Roman Empire or Byzantium, was the continuation of the Roman Empire primarily in its eastern provinces during Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages, when its capital city was Constantinopl ...

(1453). A mosaic panel depicting seven

muse In ancient Greek religion and mythology, the Muses ( grc, Μοῦσαι, Moûsai, el, Μούσες, Múses) are the inspirational goddesses of literature, science, and the arts. They were considered the source of the knowledge embodied in the ...

s of

the arts The arts are a very wide range of human practices of creative expression, storytelling and cultural participation. They encompass multiple diverse and plural modes of thinking, doing and being, in an extremely broad range of media. Both ...

, uncovered at excavations in Sinop's Meydankapı neighborhood, decorates the center of this section's floor. The stone works hall, reserved for the veneration of the dead, contains examples of the oldest

stele A stele ( ),Anglicized plural steles ( ); Greek plural stelai ( ), from Greek , ''stēlē''. The Greek plural is written , ''stēlai'', but this is only rarely encountered in English. or occasionally stela (plural ''stelas'' or ''stelæ''), whe ...

s from the Archaic period in Anatolia. A marble sculpture depicting two lions savaging a dee,r and a sarcophagus of a seaman are on display in this hall. In the coinage section, the collection features examples of the first silver coins minted in Sinop, city coins, and coins from the treasures of Ordu and Gelincik, as well as

Byzantine The Byzantine Empire, also referred to as the Eastern Roman Empire or Byzantium, was the continuation of the Roman Empire primarily in its eastern provinces during Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages, when its capital city was Constantinopl ...

and

Seljuk Seljuk or Saljuq (سلجوق) may refer to: * Seljuk Empire (1051–1153), a medieval empire in the Middle East and central Asia * Seljuk dynasty (c. 950–1307), the ruling dynasty of the Seljuk Empire and subsequent polities * Seljuk (warlord) (di ...

coinage are on display. The icon hall contains

icon An icon () is a religious work of art, most commonly a painting, in the cultures of the Eastern Orthodox, Oriental Orthodox, and Catholic churches. They are not simply artworks; "an icon is a sacred image used in religious devotion". The most ...

s from

Eastern Orthodox Eastern Orthodoxy, also known as Eastern Orthodox Christianity, is one of the three main branches of Chalcedonian Christianity, alongside Catholicism and Protestantism. Like the Pentarchy of the first millennium, the mainstream (or "canonical") ...

churches of

-era Sinop. The icons were painted and gilded

fresco Fresco (plural ''frescos'' or ''frescoes'') is a technique of mural painting executed upon freshly laid ("wet") lime plaster. Water is used as the vehicle for the dry-powder pigment to merge with the plaster, and with the setting of the plaste ...

on plastered cloth or chestnut wood panel. They are similar to icons found in the churches of Russia and Cyprus.

Amphora hall

During the French-Turkish excavation carried out between 1994 and 2000 in the center, Karakum and Demirciköy areas of Sinop, many

amphora An amphora (; grc, ἀμφορεύς, ''amphoreús''; English plural: amphorae or amphoras) is a type of container with a pointed bottom and characteristic shape and size which fit tightly (and therefore safely) against each other in storag ...

-manufacturing workshops and furnaces were unearthed. The findings revealed that the manufacturing of amphora, brick and roof tile was the main economic sector of Sinop in the

Roman Roman or Romans most often refers to: *Rome, the capital city of Italy *Ancient Rome, Roman civilization from 8th century BC to 5th century AD *Roman people, the people of ancient Rome *''Epistle to the Romans'', shortened to ''Romans'', a letter ...

and

periods. Amphora from these excavations are exhibited in the amphora hall, as well as a

replica A 1:1 replica is an exact copy of an object, made out of the same raw materials, whether a molecule, a work of art, or a commercial product. The term is also used for copies that closely resemble the original, without claiming to be identical. Al ...

of an amphora furnace, and a map showing the commercial distribution area of amphora from Sinop.

Access

The museum is located in Okullar Cad. 2, in the center of Sinop. It is open everyday, except Mondays, between 8:30 and 17:30 local time.

References

External links

Photo gallery of Sinop Museum at museum's official website
{{authority control Archaeological museums in Turkey Buildings and structures in Sinop, Turkey Tourist attractions in Sinop, Turkey

Museum A museum ( ; plural museums or, rarely, musea) is a building or institution that cares for and displays a collection of artifacts and other objects of artistic, cultural, historical, or scientific importance. Many public museums make these ...

Museums established in 1941 1941 establishments in Turkey