With its 10,500-year-old skull, mummies, archaeological and ethnographic artifacts bearing the traces of the world’s oldest known brain surgery, Aksaray Museum is among the most important museums in Turkey.
Aksaray Museum, where around 13 thousand archaeological and ethnographic artifacts are exhibited, consists of four exhibition halls connected by corridors, including ethnographic, archaeological and mummy, and 3 floors.
Artifacts from the Aşıklı Mound, Güvercinkayası and Acemhöyük excavation sites are exhibited in the Archaeology Halls located at the museum entrance.
Artifacts unearthed from the excavation site where the first village settlement was established in the region 10,500 years ago are exhibited in the Aşıklı Mound Hall. The skull bearing the traces of the world’s first brain surgery performed on a young woman, a first in medical history, is one of the most popular artifacts in the hall. In the hall, stone mortars and pestles from Aşıklı, tools such as obsidian blades, knives and mirrors, stone and bone pendants, and bone awls, fishing rods and buckles are displayed.
In the Güvercinkayası Hall, stone mortars and pestles, bone awls and handles, sling stones, spindle whorls and obsidian tools from the Chalcolithic Period settlement of Güvercinkayası, as well as handmade terracotta stoves, footed vessels and animal figurines can be seen.
In the Acemhöyük Hall, pithoi (large-sized grain and liquid storage containers), burnt door fragments, water pipes, stone axes; terracotta vessels and coasters, cups, glasses, pots, sacred drinking vessels; stone spindle whorls, buttons and game pieces; ingot silver pieces; bone handles and awls; terracotta bullas are exhibited.
Aksaray Museum was established in 1969 in Zinciriye Madrasah and artifacts were collected from the surrounding area. Later, with the excavations at Acemhöyük, Aşıklı Mound, Musular and Güvercinkayası Mound, a new building was needed and a new building was built in 2004. The artifacts on display date from the ceramic Neolithic age to the Ottoman Age.
In these display cases, terracotta vessels, fibulae, cooking pots, glass works, a statue of Asclepius, jewellery, etc. are exhibited. In the same hall, there are Greek, Roman, East Roman and Islamic coins as well as silver and gold treasure group coins. The fifth hall is arranged as the Mummies Hall.
There are a total of 15,639 artifacts obtained from purchases, donations and archaeological excavations within the borders of Aksaray in the museum.
Archaeological: 6432 pieces
Coins: 8387 pieces
Ethnographic: 822 pieces
Total: 15,639 pieces
Coin Section: There are 8387 coins made of gold, silver, bronze and copper from the Greek, Roman, East Roman and Islamic periods.
There are 3528 coins from gold, silver, bronze and copper mines dating back to the Hellenistic, Roman, Byzantine, Seljuk Dynasty and Ottoman periods.
It contains 584 works consisting of various clothing items (such as three skirts, bindalli, cepken, kaftan), ornaments, carpets, socks, purses, swords and weapons collected from the Aksaray area.
The mummies and their belongings from the Byzantine Period are remarkable. The mummies, which are the result of the belief in the immortality of the soul, were mostly unearthed from the Çanlı Church near Akhisar Village in the center of Aksaray and from the Ihlara Valley in the Cappadocia Region. While 5 of these mummies are exhibited in the Niğde Museum, there are 4 intact mummies, an incomplete mummy of an adult, incomplete mummies of a child and 2 cat mummies in the Aksaray Museum.
Mummies generally belong to priests, nuns and religious figures. In this region, as in Egypt, it was believed that there would be a resurrection after death. The cat mummy in the Aksaray Museum is the most interesting mummy. Instead of going to Egypt to see a mummy, you can visit the Aksaray Museum.
pithoi, jars, sarcophagi, tombstones, stone coats of arms and inscription fragments from different periods are exhibited. A stone work from the late Hittite period reflecting the past of Cappadocia is also exhibited in the museum.
The products from the early ages and later in the Aksaray museum are worth seeing and imagining those times, the mummy section at the end of the museum is very striking, I recommend that people coming from outside spend at least 1 hour in the museum.
Although I went on the weekend, it was not crowded and calm. There is a parking lot in the garden of the museum. Again, in the garden, Roman, Seljuk and Ottoman period artifacts are exhibited in a well-preserved manner. Inside, there are artifacts unearthed in the city of Aksaray from approximately 12 thousand years ago to the present day. The artifacts generally consist of daily used tools, mummies and coins, and most of the artifacts are well-preserved. The museum staff are very friendly and smiling, and they help in every way. However, there is no detailed information or explanations about most of the artifacts in the museum, so we cannot fully perceive the artifacts. It is one of the places to visit in Aksaray.
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