Çankırı Museum

Çankırı Museum is a museum located in the province of Çankırı, Turkey.

It began service on 9 June 1972 by exhibiting 116 items collected from the region in the ground floor of the Halkevi building.

Since 2017, the museum has been located in a building that was a Second Abdülhamid period structure and served as a government mansion for about 90 years.

The museum, which has 3000 square metres of closed and 600 square metres of open exhibition space, presents objects and finds to visitors in the Archaeology, Ethnography and Paleontology halls.

History

The museum began service in 1972 by exhibiting 116 items from the region. After continuing its work in this building until 1976, the museum was temporarily moved to Çankırı High School because the Halkevi building was demolished and the 100th Year Cultural Center was built in its place. On 23 August 1981 it was moved to the 100th Year Cultural Center and began service in that building in the same year. In order to protect and exhibit the increasing collection, it was moved in 2017 to the Çankırı Old Government Mansion building.

Museum Building

The Government Mansion, a late Ottoman period building constructed in 1905, served as the Governorate until 1985 and as a courthouse from that date until 2012. Since 2017 it has been hosting the Çankırı Museum.

It is three‑storey with a panoramic unit above the basement. The floors consist of rooms opening onto a veranda. The basement has stone walls, the other floors were built with the rammed earth (bağdadi) technique. The building draws attention with a monumental entrance opening on the north façade, emphasized by four wooden columns supporting the upper floor.

Archaeology

In the Archaeology section located on the ground floor of the museum, objects covering the Chalcolithic and Bronze Ages as well as the Hittite, Hellenistic, Roman and Eastern Roman periods are displayed in separate halls according to chronological order and object groups. Liturgical Christian items dated to the Eastern Roman period and the 18th and 19th centuries are also exhibited in this section.

Works; under the headings "Calcolithic and Bronze Ages," "Hittite Civilization," "Hellenistic Period," "Roman Period," "Eastern Roman Period" and "Coins" displayed in different sections, as well as a model of the İnandık Höyük excavation together with an imitation of the İnandık Vase, which is among the best‑known works of archaeological literature, are dedicated to this theme. In addition, the group of glass works exhibited in this section belongs to the few museum collections of its kind in Turkey.

The Coin Collection, arranged chronologically starting from the Archaic period, includes Classical, Hellenistic, Roman and Eastern Roman coins from Anatolia and its surroundings, as well as the first Islamic coins of the Umayyad period and coins of the Turkish Islamic states.

Ethnography

Ethnographic objects reflecting the lifestyle of the people and the socio‑cultural characteristics of the region are presented on the museum's first floor. Pre‑industrial handcrafted ethnographic items from the Ottoman and Early Republic periods that illuminate the recent history of Çankırı and its surroundings are exhibited in this section under the themes "Traditional Kitchen and Kitchen Utensils," "Turkish Islamic Works," "Weaving," "Traditional Clothing‑Dress," "Yaran Culture," "Mevlevi Order," "Weapons," "Medicine‑Healing," "Lighting," "Weight‑Measuring Instruments" and "Independence Road."

Natural History

The fossils obtained from the Çorakyerler Locality, one of the sites that has gained an important position both in Turkey and in world paleontology for its solid findings and faunal diversity, make a great contribution to illuminating the paleogeography of the region in terms of the history of life, migration routes and fauna diversity.

The specimens belong to the families Bovidae, Giraffidae, Suidae, Rhinocerotidae, Equidae, Proboscidea, Carnivora, Primates (tailless monkeys), Rodentia and Gastropod.

The saber-toothed tiger fossil (Carnivora) displayed in the exhibition is the only example in Turkey of a species endemic to Anatolia. As a result of studies, more than three thousand fossil specimens seized have been placed under protection and are exhibited in the Natural History exhibition hall.

Works

The museum exhibits objects from the Early Bronze Age (c. 3000-2500 BC), Hittite Period (c. 2000-1200 BC), Phrygian (early first millennium BC), Hellenistic, Roman, Byzantine, Seljuk and Ottoman periods.

The museum holds 19,939 items from various periods. Of these, 2,485 are archaeological, 1,283 are ethnographic and 16,171 are coins.