Kırklareli Museum

Kırklareli Museum

Kırklareli Müzesi
Kırklareli Museum building
Kırklareli Museum Location in Turkey
Established	1993 (1993)
Location	Mustafa Kemal Bulvarı 26, Kırklareli
Coordinates	41°44′01″N 27°13′29″E / 41.73361°N 27.22472°E / 41.73361; 27.22472Coordinates: 41°44′01″N 27°13′29″E / 41.73361°N 27.22472°E / 41.73361; 27.22472
Type	Natural history museum, Archaeology museum, Ethnographic museum
Collection size	3,507
Visitors	2013: 9,362 (417 foreigners) 2014: 9,066 (535 foreigners)
Director	Derya Balkan
Website	Museum Facebook page

Kırklareli Museum (Turkish: Kırklareli Müzesi) is a national museum in Kırklareli, Turkey, exhibiting natural history specimens, ethnographical items related to the region's history of cultural life, and archaeological artifacts found in and around the city.^[1][2] The director of the museum is Derya Balkan.^[3]

Description

The museum's building was constructed for Mutasarrıf (Governor) Neşet Pasha and mayor Hacı Mestan Efendi in 1894. It was used as the municipality office until 1962. In the 1970s, the building was vacated and left to decay. In 1983, restoration of the building began and continued with interruptions, until it was completed in 1993 and opened as a museum.^[1][2]

The museum is a two-story building with a basement. The reinforced concrete building has arch-like windows on all four sides. A bay window on the first floor, in the center of the building front, is supported by four columns flanking the main entrance. The museum consists of three sections for "culture and nature", "ethnography", and "archaeology". The museum has a total of 3,507 registered items, including 1,882 coins, 1,110 archaeological artifacts, and 515 items related to ethnography.^[1][2]

The museum serves as a center for historic research of the region, as well as collaboration with scientific institutions, assisting and guiding them. Its main duty is to register the natural and cultural properties in the region. Currently, the register lists a total of 269 preservations, including 98 archaeological sites, 3 urban sites, 13 natural reserve areas, and 155 single-building historic sites.^[1][2]

The museum is open seven days a week from 9:00–18:00 local time between April 15 and October 26. It is closed on Mondays.^[4] Access to the museum is free of charge. In 2013, a total of 9,362 people, including 417 foreign tourists, visited the museum.^[3] In 2014, the number of visitors was 9,066, of which 535 came from abroad.^[5]

Natural history section

Some taxidermized bird species in the Natural history section

A large room on the first floor is reserved for the collection of natural history. A total of 102 species native to the region, including 76 taxidermized bird and mammal species,^[2] are on display in their natural environment. Some of the animals exhibited are extinct and some are endangered species. This section draws the interest of high school students, university biology students, and researchers.^[1][2]

Ethnography section

A typical household in the region

The exhibits of the ethnography section share the upper floor with the archaeology section. This section consists of 188 items depicting rural area life in the 19th and early 20th centuries, and of city life in Kırklareli in the same period. Carpets, clothes, jewellery, and household objects are on display.^[1][2]

Archaeology section

A human skeleton and grave goods, as found in a sarcophagus

The 236 archaeological artifacts are all excavated finds from sites around Kırklareli: in the settlements of Aşağıpınar, Kanlıgeçit, and Tilkiburnu; and in the tumuli of İslambeyli, Pınarhisar, Alpullu Höyüktepe, and Dolhan. There are fossils of marine and land species, and trees, spanning the time from the Holocene geological epoch to the era of Ancient Rome. There are archaeological artifacts from the Neolithic (New Stone Age), Chalcolithic (Copper Age), and Iron Age, as well as from the eras of Ancient Greece, Ancient Rome, Byzantine Empire, and Ottoman Empire.^[1][2][3]

A sample collection of 72 coins from Ancient Greece, Ancient Rome, Byzantine Empire, and Ottoman Empire is on exhibition. A life-size sculpture of a female human torso stands in the entrance hall on the ground floor. Marble reliefs from an amphitheatre of the Late Roman Empire (2nd century), unearthed between 1995 and 1997 in Vize, are exhibited on the staircase wall. Due to new archaeological finds unearthed at ongoing excavations and limited space in the museum, some archaeological items are interchanged from time to time.^[1][2]

References

External links

Museums in Turkey
Aegean Region Afyonkarahisar Archaeological Museum Atatürk's House (Şuhut) Aydın Archaeological Museum Bergama Museum Bostanlı Open-air Archaeological Museum Çamlık Railway Museum Çeşme Museum Denizli Museum İnciraltı Sea Museum İzmir Archaeological Museum İzmir Art and Sculpture Museum Izmir Ethnography Museum İzmir Toy Museum Kütahya Archaeological Museum Manisa Archaeological Museum Muğla Museum Ödemiş Museum Uşak Museum of Archaeology Victory Museum
Black Sea Region Amasra Museum Amasya Museum Baksı Museum Bolu Museum Çorum Archaeological Museum Giresun Museum Hagia Sophia, Trabzon Karabük Kardemir Iron-Steel Museum Karadeniz Ereğli Museum Kastamonu Ethnography Museum Ordu Ethnographical Museum Sinop Fortress Prison Sinop Archaeological Museum Söğüt Ertuğrul Gazi Museum Rize Atatürk Museum Tokat Museum Trabzon Museum
Central Anatolia Region Akşehir Museum Anıtkabir Ankara Aviation Museum Atatürk Museum Mansion Çengelhan Rahmi M. Koç Museum Eskişehir Museum Ethnography Museum of Ankara Feza Gürsey Science Center Gökyay Association Chess Museum Karaman Museum Kayseri Archaeology Museum Kırıkkale MKE Weapons Industry Museum Kırşehir Museum Konya Archaeological Museum Konya Ereğli Museum Mehmet Akif Ersoy Literature Museum Library METU Science and Technology Museum Mevlana Museum Museum of Anatolian Civilizations Nevşehir Museum Niğde Archaeological Museum Pembe Köşk Republic Museum Roman Baths of Ankara Sivas Congress and Ethnography Museum State Art and Sculpture Museum TCDD Open Air Steam Locomotive Museum Ulucanlar Prison Museum War of Independence Museum
Eastern Anatolia Elazığ Archaeology and Ethnography Museum Ali Demirsoy Natural History Museum Kars Museum Malatya Museum
Marmara Region Museum of Nationist Forces in Balıkesir Bilecik Museum Bursa Archaeological Museum Bursa Museum of Turkish and Islamic Art Çanakkale Archaeological Museum Edirne Museum Kırklareli Museum Kocaeli Museum Mudanya Armistice House Namık Kemal House Museum Rákóczi Museum Sakarya Museum SEKA Paper Museum Tekirdağ Museum of Archaeology and Ethnography Tofaş Museum of Cars and Anatolian Carriages For museums in İstanbul see Museums in Istanbul
Mediterranean Region Adana Archaeology Museum Adana Cinema Museum Alanya Archaeological Museum Anamur Museum Atatürk Museum Adana Ethnography Museum Antalya Museum Atatürk's House Museum (Antalya) Burdur Archaeological Museum Hatay Archaeology Museum İskenderun Naval Museum Kahramanmaraş Archaeology Museum Karatepe-Aslantaş Open-Air Museum Mersin Atatürk Museum Mersin Museum Mersin Naval Museum Mersin Water Museum Mersin Urban History Museum Misis Mosaic Museum Narlıkuyu Museum Osmaniye City Museum Silifke Museum Silifke Atatürk Museum Tarsus Museum Karatepe Arslantaş Museum
Southeastern Anatolia Region Adıyaman Archaeological Museum Ahmet Arif Literature Museum Library Diyarbakır Archaeological Museum Gaziantep Museum of Archaeology Kilis Museum Mardin Museum Şanlıurfa Archaeology and Mosaic Museum

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