Şanlıurfa Archaeology and Mosaic Museum is a museum in Şanlıurfa (also known as Urfa),

Turkey Turkey ( tr, Türkiye ), officially the Republic of Türkiye ( tr, Türkiye Cumhuriyeti, links=no ), is a transcontinental country located mainly on the Anatolian Peninsula in Western Asia, with a small portion on the Balkan Peninsula in ...

. The museum contains remains of Şanlıurfa (known as Edessa in antiquity),

Harran Harran (), historically known as Carrhae ( el, Kάρραι, Kárrhai), is a rural town and district of the Şanlıurfa Province in southeastern Turkey, approximately 40 kilometres (25 miles) southeast of Urfa and 20 kilometers from the border cr ...

(another ancient city which lies southeast of Şanlıurfa), and ruins found in the hydroelectric dam reservoirs of

Atatürk Dam The Atatürk Dam ( tr, Atatürk Barajı), originally the Karababa Dam, is the third largest dam in the world and it is a zoned rock-fill dam with a central core on the Euphrates River on the border of Adıyaman Province and Şanlıurfa Province ...

Birecik Dam The Birecik Dam, one of the 21 dams of the Southeastern Anatolia Project of Turkey, is located on the Euphrates River downstream of Atatürk Dam and upstream of Birecik town west of Province of Şanlıurfa in the southeastern region of Turke ...

and Karkamış Dam.

The location history and the building

The museum is on Haleplibahçe street, close to Balıklıgöl, a sacred pool. The museum opened in 2015, and replaced the former museum of Şanlıurfa on Çamlık street. With a closed area of , it is one of the biggest museums of in Turkey. The museum consists of two major sections. To the north is the mosaic section and to the south is the archaeology section which is a three-storey building. In addition to exhibition halls there are offices, a museum lab, a library, restaurants, markets and a playground for kids.

The mosaic section

The mosaic of Orpheus was created in 184 A.D. in Edessa. It was found in 1980, and was taken to United States by illegal means. After some handovers, it returned to Şanlıurfa from the Dallas Museum in 2015.

The archaeology section

In the ground and upper floor there are four exhibition halls. The first exhibition hall is reserved for

Assyria Assyria ( Neo-Assyrian cuneiform: , romanized: ''māt Aššur''; syc, ܐܬܘܪ, ʾāthor) was a major ancient Mesopotamian civilization which existed as a city-state at times controlling regional territories in the indigenous lands of the ...

n, Babylonian and Hittite artifacts. In the second and third halls,

Neolithic The Neolithic period, or New Stone Age, is an Old World archaeological period and the final division of the Stone Age. It saw the Neolithic Revolution, a wide-ranging set of developments that appear to have arisen independently in several p ...

Chalcolithic The Copper Age, also called the Chalcolithic (; from grc-gre, χαλκός ''khalkós'', "copper" and ''líthos'', "stone") or (A)eneolithic (from Latin '' aeneus'' "of copper"), is an archaeological period characterized by regular ...

and

Bronze Age The Bronze Age is a historic period, lasting approximately from 3300 BC to 1200 BC, characterized by the use of bronze, the presence of writing in some areas, and other early features of urban civilization. The Bronze Age is the second prin ...

items such as stone tools, terracota ceramic tools, stamps, pithoi, necklaces, figurines, metallic tools, ornaments, and idols are exhibited. One of the most important items is a 9500-year-old sculpture which is the oldest-known life-size human sculpture. In the ethnographic section, clothes, silver and bronze ornaments, handworks, doors with epitaph, examples of calligraphy, and hand written Korans are exhibited. In the yard, there are various archaeologic items.

References

External links

* {{Museums in Turkey Buildings and structures in Şanlıurfa Museums in Turkey 1987 establishments in Turkey Tourist attractions in Şanlıurfa Province Museums established in 1987