The Place of Istanbul Archaeological Museums in the Evolution of Museology in Ottoman

Empire and Early Turkish Republic

by

Evinç Doğan and Işılay Gürsu

In 12 February 2009, Turkish Ministry of Culture and Tourism has signed a protocol with The

Turkish Travel Agencies Association (TURSAB)1 regarding the support of the activities of the

Istanbul Archaeological Museums and to increase its contributions to the country's culture

and tourism.2 The Istanbul Archaeological Museums Development Project which is created

based on this protocol will last for 8 years.

Once the project was announced to public, there were many positive and negative reactions.

The way the Ministry has defended this project, which was the first of its kind in Turkey,

depended on the assumption that it would increase the number of local visitors. In line with

this, one of the most important impetuses for designing such a protocol was to create a

model which would enable private initiatives to contribute to public cultural institutions.

These new partnerships were needed, according to the official opinion, to increase public

awareness about the museums, their collections and cultural heritage at a general extent.

This protocol did not come out of blue. One can very easily evaluate it within the umbrella of

neo-liberal political movements introduced by the current Turkish government which is

extremely welcoming to any kind of private intervention to public fields. However one can

not underestimate the importance of the official declaration: for most of the local

population of Istanbul, the museum is out of the mental map.

Recently many researchers are considering the reasons of this ignorance/deliberate

negligence of public cultural institutions in the Turkish Republic. For instance in her

1 The Association of Turkish Travel Agencies is a Professional, non-profit organization having the status of legal person, established by Law in 1972. The main aims of the Association are, the development of the travel agency profession in harmony with the country’s economy and tourism sector, and protection of professional ethics and solidarity. http://www.tursab.org.tr/en/tursab/about-tursab_1061.html

2 The full name of the protocol is: “Istanbul Archaeological Museums Sponsorship, Service and Cooperation Protocol, Istanbul Arkeoloji Müzeleri Destekçilik, Hizmet ve İşbirliği Sözleşmesi”

remarkable book “Possessors and Possessed: Museums, Archaeology and the Visualization

of History in the Late Ottoman Empire” Wendy Shaw states:

“When we ask ourselves why the number of local visitors to Turkish museums is very

less, we have to consider:

– what kind of needs did these museums address,

– who used to determine these needs

– how these needs were satisfied “

In parallel to this, our aim is to dig this case further for the context of Istanbul Archaeological

Museums with an historical approach. Being the first museum in the Ottoman Empire and

Turkish Republic, this particular museum offers us the opportunity to evaluate the

understanding of “archaeology, museum, collection, display and even legislation” in the late

Ottoman Empire and early Turkish Republic era. Accordingly, the Ottoman interpretation of

museum which is, in some ways, remarkably different from European perspective will be

touched upon with the discussion of the evolution of museuology in the 19th century

Ottoman Empire.

Founding the “Imperial Museum”

Political Context

The path which has lead to the creation of the “Imperial Museum of the Ottoman Empire”,

which would in time become Istanbul Archaeological Museums, needs to be evaluated in the

light of the political conditions surrounding the Empire and Europe.

In a broader political context, 19th century refers to the period of decline of the Empire. It

came to an end with the Ottomans under the political and economic domination of

European powers with the Empire having difficulty of repaying the public debt to European

banks and dealing with the rising nationalism. The rise of nationalism swept through many

countries during the 19th century, and it affected territories within the Ottoman Empire. A

burgeoning national consciousness, together with a growing sense of ethnic nationalism,

made nationalistic thought one of the most significant Western ideas imported to the

Ottoman Empire. Ottoman State had to face nationalism both within and beyond its borders.

As a reaction to this situation, the Tanzimât (meaning reorganization of the Empire, 1839-

1876) emerged. This era of reform was characterized by various attempts to modernize the

Empire, to secure its territorial integrity against nationalist movements and aggressive

powers. The reforms encouraged Ottomanism among the diverse ethnic groups of the

Empire, attempting to stem the tide of nationalist movements within the Ottoman Empire.

Under these political conditions, which obviously had negative economic results, most of the

antique monuments within the borders of the Empire were in a ruinous state. Moreover,

they were subject to increasing European interest which had already started as early as 17th

century in the form of acquisition of antique objects of Greek and Roman civilizations from

the Ottoman Lands.

In the history of Ottoman Empire, Sultan Abdülaziz (1861-1876) was the first in his dynasty

to leave the empire for a purpose other than war and made a trip to the capital cities of

Europe. The main destination was the 1867 Universal Exhibition in Paris. The visit was also

very widely discussed in the French and other European papers and many people were

curious to see the Sultan. The aim of the Ottoman officials to show up in the exhibition can

be the desire to used the opportunity to convince European powers of their commitment to

modernization and hence their desire to become part of the European system.

During this visit, Sultan Abdülaziz visited Napoleon III in the Elysée Palace in Paris and he

made some visits to fine arts galleries. The French newspaper L’Illustration had published an

illustration of the Sultan during his visit to the Abras Gallery which had a remarkable Greco-

Roman collection.3 So the Greco-Roman antiquities were among the signs of European

civilization to which the Sultan was exposed in Europe. Accordingly, Le Figaro newspaper of 7

July 1867 gave the account:

3 Shaw,W. “Possessors and Possessed: Museums, Archaeology and the Visualization of History in the Late Ottoman Empire” pg. 103.

“Abdülaziz stopped in front of "les plus beaux meubles" and "les bronzes les plus

artistiques" in the furniture section of the exhibition before going on to visit the fine

arts gallery.”4

In his book, Innocent Abroad, however Mark Twain was defining Napoleon III and Abdülaziz

as two figures that represented opposite worlds:

“Napoleon III, the representative of the highest modern civilization, progress, and

refinement; Abdul-Aziz, the representative of a people by nature and training filthy,

brutish, ignorant, unprogressive, superstitious—and a government whose Three

Graces are Tyranny, Rapacity, Blood. Here in brilliant Paris, under the majestic Arch of

Triumph, the First Century greets the Nineteenth!”5

The Ottoman interest in antiquities began to rise soon after Sultan Abdülaziz’s visit to

Europe. For centuries as the Westerners did, the Ottomans did not deem it necessary to

collect or conserve these values except in palace collections and vakıf (foundation) works.6 In

Ottoman Empire, the action of collecting did not find its roots in the private collections like

the ones in Europe, the first systematic collection activities were based on the state

initiative.

Aya İrini Collection

Since the early 18th century, the 6th century Byzantine church, Aya İrini, which was located

within the first courtyard of the Ottoman Imperial Palace, Topkapı, was used as a store for

armors in addition to antiquities.

4 Çelik, Zeynep. Displaying the Orient: Architecture of Islam at Nineteenth-Century World's Fairs. Berkeley: University of California Press, c1992 1992. <http://ark.cdlib.org/ark:/13030/ft8x0nb62g/>

5 Twain,M. “Innocent Abroad”, 126. http://etext.virginia.edu/etcbin/toccer-new2?id=TwaInno.sgm&images=images/modeng&data=/texts/english/modeng/parsed&tag=public&part=all

6 Gürol, P. “Conflicting Visualities on Display: National Museums from the Ottoman Empire to the Turkish Republic” < http://www.ep.liu.se/ecp/030/008/ecp0830008.pdf>

Although the church was very close to the palace, it was one of those churches which were

never converted into a mosque. Historical accounts point out to the fact that it has been

started to be used as an arsenal right after Ottomans captured Istanbul.7 This may be the

reason why it was always kept as a non-practicing church.

In mid 19th century (1846), the building hosted two different collections and was used as a

military storage. The collections that were kept in Aya İrini were:

- The Magazine of Antique Weapons and

- The Magazine of Antiquities including remains of Constantinople, Christian and

Islamic Relics.

The first collection which is the antique weapons collections forms the core of the Modern

Military Museum. The second one becomes the “Imperial Museum” which would form the

core of today’s Istanbul Archaeological Museums.

These collections belonged to the state and were composed of objects which were collected

based on the Sultans orders. This is why one should not be surprised to find a special

chamber for the Sultan to be used during his visits in the church of Aya İrini.

The travelers’ accounts give information about the condition of the collection in the 19 th

century. These accounts indicate that the collection in Aya irini was open to elite and

preferably to foreign visitors.8 Nonetheless these visitors were not allowed to see everything

which was part of the collections. A simple catalogue of the collections of Aya İrini was

prepared by the French archaeologist Albert Dumont in 1867 and it was published as an

article (Les Musee Saint-Irene a Constantinople Antiquites Grecites, Grecoromaines et

Byzantines) in Revue Archeologique in 1868. He mentioned that “in the galleries of Aya Irini,

the sculptures, inscriptions and reliefs were exhibited randomly. Most of the objects are

hard to be examined since they are placed behind many unrelated objects; some of them

7 Shaw,W. “Possessors and Possessed: Museums, Archaeology and the Visualization of History in the Late Ottoman Empire” pg. 21

8 Flaubert, Gustave, Oeuvres Completes: Voyages and Gautier, Constinanople.

suffer from humidity. The labels contain very limited information regarding the place of

origin. Ottoman State needs a European archaeologist who can organize this collection9”

These collections were strictly closed to the local people of the city. The first courtyard of

the palace was where the locals would go for many reasons including administrative issues,

and the public access to this courtyard was unlimited. Although the collections were kept

within a building which was located at a point with unlimited public access, no one was

allowed to see what was inside unless they were an Ottoman elite/high rank official or a

foreigner. The power of this collection stemmed from the fact that it was a source of

curiosity.

When Sultan Abdülaziz made his trip to Europe and was exposed to the European way of

displaying antiquities which are mostly Greco-Roman, he supported the idea of creating an

Imperial Museum. Since there were already two collections in Aya İrini, the Magazine of

Antiquities became the subject of first attempts to found an institution.

The second collection which was the Magazine of Antique Weapons were not even

candidates for becoming the collections of the empire’s museum because the military

failures were tried to be kept away from the memoirs of Ottoman people whereas an appeal

to the instant past, embodied by antiquities, could construct new ways of incorporating a

European identity into the empire without chafing against the recurrent concerns of politics

and war. Additionally, the antiquities would serve as an integral part of Empire’s latest

communication strategies. To do so, it used a new language of archaeological ownership

that could avoid the recent memory of humiliating military defeats.

Renaming the Aya Irini Collection- From Magazine to Museum

As already mentioned, the Imperial Museum would emerge from the Magazine of

Antiquities which was kept in Aya İrini church. It is important to note that the Ottoman word

for “Magazine”, (Mecmua) means two things as its English translation: collection and journal.

The new organization of this collection institutionalized it and in 1869 the “Magazine of

Antiquities” was renamed as “Imperial Museum- Müze-i Hümayun.”

9 Pasinli, A. Istanbul Archaeology Museum, pg.12

As an “imperial” museum, the institution became representative of the entire empire as a

conglomeration of various territories represented by antiquities. In conjunction with the

announcement of the new museum, a memorandum was issued to various regions. The

request of the capital was clear: send almost every ancient object which is found within your

territories to Istanbul. Right after the establishment of the museum, many governors were

rushing to obey the order of the capital. For them, this was a way of legitimizing their power

and control of their governorship.

It is also important to underline the use of the term “Museum” (Müze) for this new

institution. By using a European origin word, the empire emphasized that Museum implied

new cultural functions similar to those European museums. In this regard, the state becomes

a participant in an international elite culture. Additionally, an educational function similar to

that of European museums is evident: this new institution is supposed to be a place where

the public- in this case the Ottoman elite and foreign tourists- could learn about the state

power through the appreciation of antiquities in a carefully orchestrated setting.

The official order stipulating the foundation of the museum started with a reference to

museums in Europe:

“It is not right for a museum not to exist in our country when the museums of

Europe are decorated with rare works taken from here.”10

The first director of the Imperial Museum was Edward Goold who was a British professor

teaching in Istanbul. One of the first tasks that the he did was to complete the inventories of

the museum with special notes to the donors who were composed of different governors, so

each province came to be represented in the collection through antiquities that had been

located in it. After the short directorship of Edward Goold, the second director was again

chosen from Europe. This time German Dr. Phillip Anton Dethier, who unlike Goold, had a

background in history, classics, philology, archaeology and art history at Berlin University,

was appointed as the second director.11

10 Kocabas, R. “Müzecilik hareketi ve ilk müze okulunun açılışı (Museology Movement and the Opening of the First Museum Academy)”, pg.75

11 Pasinli, A. Istanbul Archaeology Museum.

From Aya İrini to Tiled Kiosk

During the directorship of Dethier,(1872-1880) the collections were expanding both due to

the objects which were sent from different governorships and to the excavation campaigns

which were conducted in the empire. The number of collections rose from 160 to 650 in 8

years of his service. This situation created a need for a larger space since Aya İrini was too

small for expanding collections.

The construction of a new building was considered for a while but the economic difficulties

surrounding the empire did not allow it to happen.

Under these circumstances, the search for an appropriate building resulted in the decision in

favor of the Tiled Kiosk (Çinili Köşk). The Tiled Kiosk was built in the era of Sultan Mehmed II

the Conqueror, in mid 15th century. It was in the gardens of the Imperial Palace and it was

not used after the reign of Sultan Mehmet II. It was convenient to use this building as the

second home for the Imperial collections due to its physical proximity to Aya İrini and its

symbolic location which lied at the heart of the city within the borders of the palace.

During the transfer of the collections from Aya İrini to Tiled Kiosk, a “museum commission”

was established to oversee:

“completion of the repairs to the tiled pavilion that were being made into a

museum, the transport of the antiquities and coins already in the collection to the

new place without being damaged, to conserve antiquities outside of the

museum in their present state, to make a path for excavation and research, to

make the museum into a place of spectacle that would attract everybody’s

attention and to categorize and organize the existing works”12

This commission was composed of:

- Dr. Dethier as the museum director,

- Kirkar Efendi (the guard) and Sebilyan Efendi (coin expert) as the museum

personnel,

12 Cezar, Sanatta Batıya Açılış ve Osman Hamdi, I. Cilt, (Westernization in Art and Osman Hamdi, I.volume), pg28

- Mustafa Efendi, the Turkish and Muslim member from the education commission

- Monsieur Mosali and Monsieur Delaine -two Levantine bureaucrats

- Osman Hamdi Bey : The Mayor of Istanbul 6th District13

The responsibilities assigned to this commission reveal some interesting perspectives which

encircle the understanding of the new museum. First of all, there is a concern about the

conservation of the antiquities. Secondly, the emphasis on the excavation, research and

enhancement issues prove that Ottomans are deeply inspired by the European ideologies on

museums and its functions. Another interesting point is the assignment of the mayor of the

6th district. This indicates that the museum, at a very close point to the Imperial Palace is not

meant be a local attraction point but instead a spectacle place for foreign tourists.

After the restoration project which converted Tiled Kiosk into a museum was finalized, the

Kiosk had lost most of its original decorations. In the later years, this intervention was

recognized as an irreversible mistake. This rash restoration indicates the fact that the

Ottoman heritage was not perceived as a part of the heritage that the Imperial Museum was

targeting.

The opening of the Imperial Museum in Tiled Kiosk

The Imperial Museum in Tiled Kiosk was opened to public on 17 August 188014. The Minister

of Education, Munif Pasha, at the opening stated:

“There is no need to go at length about the benefits of such museums. They show the

level of civilization of past peoples and their step-by-step progress. From this, many

13 In Late Ottoman Era, the city is divided into different districts with their own municipalities. Although the museum was located within the 1st district which is mainly composed of merchants of Muslim-Turkish origin, the commission welcomed the major of the 6th district which is the Pera region and is highly populated with the European population living in Istanbul. Çelik,Z. “The remaking of Istanbul: portrait of an Ottoman city in the nineteenth century” 14

? The new museum can be visited everyday but there is an entrance fee. Wednesdays are reserved for women, the entrance on Tuesdays is 5 Kuruş and other days 2,5 kuruş. Pasinli, A. Istanbul Archaeology Museum.

historical, scientific and artistic benefits can be obtained. Everybody knows the great

effects of archaeology on European civilization” 15

The Minister underlines the great effects and their potential benefits to Ottoman Empire.

These effects could be:

“To reify national identity, to gain historical depth and transform this into material

wealth. To justify possession and then to claim it. To produce a determinative

narrative of progress and thus to ensure the hierarchical position of modern Europe

in relation to the narrative of history.

If archaeology could do this for Europe why could not do it for Ottoman Empire?”16

The display in this new museum aimed to give a political message. The two lion statues of

Bodrum (Halicarnassus) Mausoleum which were confiscated after the excavation carried out

by British archaeologist/diplomat Charles Newton were placed at the entrance of the

building. Inside the museum, the display of the collection was rather fragmented and no

initiative was taken to make it more complete; rather fragments were preferred since they

were a reflection of Empire’s struggle to keep the antiquities within their borders.

Osman Hamdi Bey

The growth of the imperial museum from a small collection into an institution depended on

a great extent on the efforts of a single man who embodied many of the intellectual

aspirations of his age: Osman Hamdi Bey.

Being the third and the most influential director of the Imperial Museum, Osman Hamdi Bey

was a painter, archaeologist and an important bureaucrat of his time. 17

15 Cezar, Sanatta Batıya Açılış ve Osman Hamdi, I. Cilt, s241-242 (Westernization in Art and Osman Hamdi, I.volume)

16 Shaw, W. “Possessors and Possessed: Museums, Archaeology and the Visualization of History in the Late Ottoman Empire” pg. 94.17 Osman Hamdi Bey is considered to be among the most prominent Turkish painters. His famous painting “The Tortoise Trainer” was purchased by a Turkish private museum, Pera, in 2004 for 3.5 million dollars which was the record sale in Turkish history.

He was born in 1842 into a family integrated into the imperial bureaucracy and one of the

most western-oriented families in the country. His father was a government official with high

level administrative positions including the minister of internal affairs and grand vizier. Most

of the letters he wrote to his father were in French though he was brought up as an Ottoman

and royal to the Ottoman State. He was trained in France – initially for law but then ended

up receiving fine arts education from French orientalist painters Jean-Leon Gerome and

Gustave Boulanger.

After 9 years in Paris, he came back to Istanbul and then was sent to Baghdad as a part of

the administrative team of Midhat Pasha who was one of the most important

tanzimat/reformation builders. Upon his return from Baghdad, his father assigned him as the

commissioner for the Ottoman delegation to the Vienna International Exposition where he

was able to combine his bureaucrat and artist identities for the first time.

After his return he held many positions in the foreign affairs and he became the director of

sixth municipality. He left this position to become the museum director. And he remained as

the museum director for 29 years although he was offered the position of “Minister of

Foreign Affairs”

While he was the director, he never stopped painting but he did not make any direct

reference to the museum in his paintings: he did not depict museum spaces nor did he

attempt to contextualize antiquities in ancient sites.

He used his position to develop the museum, rewrite the antiquities law, to create nationally

sponsored archaeological expeditions and to institute a school of the arts.

Legislation

After becoming the director of the museum, one of the first steps taken by Osman Hamdi

Bey was preparing a regulation. (Asar-ı Atika Nizamnamesi - Ancient Artifacts Regulation,

1883)

The previous regulation prepared by Dr. Dethiér in 1874 had not included provisions aimed

at preventing artifacts found within the Ottoman borders from being shipped to foreign

countries.

The regulation of 1874 stated:

“wherever antiquities are discovered (lying upon the ground) they belong to the

state..as for the antiquities that are found by those with research permission a third

belongs to the excavator, a third to the state treasury, and a third to the land owner…

the state is responsible for the preservation of sites that cannot be moved and for the

appointment of an administrator of such sites..” 18

Osman Hamdi Bey rewrote this law governing antiquities in 1883–84 which enabled the

state to prohibit archaeological finds from leaving Ottoman territory.

To emphasize how things had changed, the salnames19 made sure to mention Ottoman

authorities’ control of foreign explorers when describing archaeological excavations.

According to the Aydın salname of 1901, Germans were working in Pergamon with the

permission of the government. The Mosul salname of 1910 reports that Germans had also

been excavating in Şirkat with the authorization of the Ottoman state since 1904 and had

discovered a“glorious and regular city.” The artifacts from the site were taken, not to

Germany this time, but to the Imperial Museum in Istanbul by special envoys assigned to the

task.20

In this regard, Osman Hamdi Bey became the gatekeeper, to whom all foreign archaeologists

had to answer and his museum, rather than its European counterparts, became the

repository of all new discoveries.21

18 Temelkuran,T. “Ülkemizden Götürülen Tarih ve Sanat Hazineleri, İlk Eski Eserler Nizamnamesi”

19 Ottoman yearbooks

20 Çelik, Zeynep. “Defining Empire’s Partimony: Ottoman Perception of Antiquities” in Archaeologists and Travelers in Ottoman Lands.

21 Archaeologists and Travelers in Ottoman Lands: The Artist Archaeologist and Bureaucrat: <http://www.ottomanlands.com/about/preface>

The antiquities law, in theory, was strict in its terms however it was more flexible in practice:

“gifts” could be presented to obliging foreign archaeologists as part of Osman Hamdi Bey’s

diplomatic strategy. In this way, he was trying to create sympathy among his colleagues

towards Ottoman Empire which was aspiring to be accepted as a part of scientific

community.

Reactions of International Community

Upon the enactment of the law and its applications, the foreigners who used to excavate

within the borders of the empire without difficulty were now faced with new and serious

regulations regarding their “scientific” conducts. Their reactions, as one may expect, were

very negative at the beginning. The issue of excavation permission meant that even their

presence in the empire as archaeologists is subject to limitation; additionally taking the

excavated material to their home countries was strictly restricted by this new law.

One of the interesting reactions came from the American archaeologists who were

excavating in Assos:

“The American excavations at Assos had been undertaken before the law was

rewritten, but the effrontery of its young director J.T. Clarke had so offended Hamdi

Bey that he had not issued the export permit; Haynes had to later intervene,

although he was hardly of the same stature as Hamdi Bey. Peters in turn arrived in

Constantinople thinking that anything in the Imperial Museum was for sale; he was

rebuffed. Then, not realizing Hamdi Bey was the author of the new antiquities

legislation, Peters criticized it to his face. He did not make a favorable impression.

Hilprecht fared much better, for not only was he a master of obsequiousness, he was

also a European gentleman who could appeal to Hamdi Bey’s European identity.

Moreover, he arrived with an important bargaining chip—a rare understanding of

Assyriology and cuneiform scripts that could be put to full advantage in setting up the

new museum.”22

22 Archaeologists and Travelers in Ottoman Lands: The Artist Archaeologist and Bureaucrat: <http://www.ottomanlands.com/about/preface>

Following the negative reactions and offences, most of the foreign archaeologists have

accepted the fact that these were the new rules of excavating in the Empire. This acceptance

has resulted in the approval of Osman Hamdi Bey to the international scientific community.

Due to his success in excavation campaigns has been awarded by many international

institutions: French Institute, Oxford University in addition to two other British and 3

German Universities and Membership in Berlin, London, Vien, Philadelphia, Boston and

Athen Archaeology Institutes to name a few23.

He engaged in a publicity campaign, mostly through the publication of his finds, but also by

hiring scholars to help him catalogue and organizing the materials.

Trained in Paris, Osman Hamdi Bey was a European gentleman who was working as an

Ottoman bureaucrat. This dual situation was raised by the scholar Edhem Eldem as follows:

“The more European Osman Hamdi appeared in dress, profession, and painterly

expression, the more his activities aimed to counterbalance the cultural effects of

European dominance over the interpretation of antiquities in their historical and

nationalist context. The similarity between his multifarious professional activities and

those of European institutions designed to present the Orient as territory in need of

colonial expansion camouflaged his subversive anti-imperialist and Ottoman-

nationalist agenda. At the same time, the appropriation of the Orientalist gaze

allowed Osman Hamdi to use his paintings as expressions of the political motivations

and frustrations behind his activities as the director of the Ottoman Imperial

Museum”24

Excavations

Osman Hamdi Bey played a distinct role in changing the direction of archaeology not only for

the Ottomans, but for all those excavating in the lands of the empire.

23 Pasinli, Alpay: Istanbul Archaeology Museum, Akbank, 200324 Eldem, E. “An Ottoman Archaeologist Caught between Two Worlds: Osman Hamdi Bey (1842–1910).”

He conducted many excavations within the borders of the empire including: Nemrut

Mountain, Sidon Royal Necropolis, Lagina and Magnesia on Meander and Tralles.

With the major excavation in 1887 at the Royal Cemetery at Sidon, numerous grand marble

sarcophagi were unearthed, including the famed Alexander Sarcophagus. This excavation

was an important turn point for the success of the museum and for its placement among the

respected and famous museums around the world.

One Ottoman report about the Sarcophagus from Sidon states regarding the Alexander

Sarcophagus:

“decorated exquisitely with bas-reliefs and embroideries , and deserving to be exhibited

in the best museums of the world,”

The new museum was publicized with so much pride that many European and American

scholars came to Istanbul to see it.

Academy of Fine Arts – Ancient Orient Museum

Another important project which was realized during the directorship of Osman Hamdi Bey

was the establishment of the first School of Fine Arts (Sanayi-i Nefise Mektebi) of Ottoman

Empire in 1883. The building, which currently houses the Ancient Near Eastern section of

Istanbul Archaeological Museums was designed by the Levantine architect Alexander

Vallaury who was also among the professors of the school.

The aim in founding this institution was to produce local knowledge and appreciation for the

arts and the expanding collections of the Imperial Museum. This institution, which was

transferred to another building in 1917, is the core of the current Mimar Sinan Fine Arts

Academy of Istanbul and following the directorship of Osman Hamdi Bey, many graduates of

this academy were assigned as the museum directors.

The establishment of this particular educational department was an important attempt

because the production and public display of sculpture and painting were discouraged in the

Ottoman rule. This dislike for the representation of living creatures was mainly based on

religious beliefs.

As founder of the art academy, originally adjacent to the museum, Osman Hamdi Bey

continued to paint in the French manner and to train students. While he did not exhibit his

paintings within Turkey, they began to gain attention abroad, and were exhibited and sold in

Europe and America.

Since Osman Hamdi Bey had already became the gateway for excavation permits, these sales

can be interpreted as the initiatives to build bridges between this important figure and those

who were interested in acquiring permits to excavate or to export antiquities.

Thus, for example, in 1892 two of his paintings were exhibited at the Palais d’Industrie in

Paris; one was purchased by the French, through the ministrations of Léon Heurzey, Curator

of Oriental Antiquities at the Louvre, who was subsequently congratulated, because

“nothing could be more pleasing to an artist who can render us services and who is

important to satisfy.” 25

In the following year, Hamdi Bey was elected corresponding member of the Institut de

France; the French in turn received a coveted antique. The purchased painting was not

exhibited and ended up in the Musée des Colonies.

Although he made no direct reference to the museum or its collections in his paintings, one

of his works can be interpreted as the symbolic relationship between the conservation of

ancient sarcophagi and the conservation of the Ottoman culture. The “Dervish at the

Shehzade Tomb” which he painted in 1908, shows Osman Hamdi Bey as the dervish who

stands in front of two tombs. He reflects his role as the director of the museum of

sarcophagi in a framework of Ottoman character. He depicts himself as a person who has a

lot of respect for the Ottoman past, as possessing a second identity which guards ostensibly

the sarcophagus and symbolically the memory. Transferring this image to his occupation, he

means while conserving the Helen-Byzantine sarcophagi at the museum he conserves the

25 Archaeologists and Travelers in Ottoman Lands: The Artist Archaeologist and Bureaucrat: <http://www.ottomanlands.com/about/preface>

tombs. It is as if he is trying to create the imaginaries based on his daily real activities.

Disclosing his Ottoman dressing beneath his European one and disclosing the Ottoman

heritage beneath the Helen-Byzantine heritage, he reflects the main issue for Ottomans to

safeguard this heritage.26

The Museum of Sarcophagi (Archaeological Museum)

After the excavations in Sidon, it was obvious that Tiled Kiosk did not have enough and

suitable space for the display of these magnificent findings. A new museum building was

needed in order to display the artifacts such as the Alexander Sarcophagus, the Sarcophagus

of the Crying Women, the Lycian Sarcophagus and the Sarcophagus of Tabnit brought to

İstanbul after the Royal Necropolis excavations in Sidon, Lebanon led by Osman Hamdi Bey

in 1887 and 1888.

The Empire was in the middle of a financial crisis and the construction of such a building

seemed very challenging. However, the possession of these important and well-recognized

artifacts from Sidon had a particular importance in the communication strategies of the

State. Under these circumstances, Osman Hamdi Bey’s call for the construction of a new

building did not go unanswered by the Sultan of the time, Abdulhamit II.

The Sarcophagi Museum, was built against the Tiled Kiosk by architect Alexander Vallaury,

who had designed the Academy of Fine Arts, and was opened to visits on June 13, 1891. This

day is still celebrated as the Museum Day in Turkey. It was among the few buildings in the

world constructed as a museum building including a library, workshop and photography

studio.

The museum did not only owe its name to the sarcophagi which were unearthed in Sidon,

but also its architectural design was heavily inspired by one of these sarcophagi, the

Sarcophagus of the Crying Women. Today’s Archaeological Museum, which was called “The

Sarcophagi Museum” upon its first opening, is one of the most glorious examples of the neo-

classical architecture in İstanbul. It has a very spectacular architecture especially due to its 26 Shaw, W. “Possessors and Possessed: Museums, Archaeology and the Visualization of History in the Late Ottoman Empire” pg. 234

gorgeous façade. With the two entrances on the long façade, which are reached through

wide stairs, and each of which is decorated with four columns and a pediment, it appears

like a temple.

The selection of this particular architectural style is not a random one. Neo classical style

echoed the primary collection of Greco-Roman art displayed in the museum and additionally

it was copying the ideologies of world museums like British Museum in London (1823-46) or

the Altes Museum in Berlin (1823-30). Classicism was considered to central to the concept of

nationalism in the 19th century and monumental structures represented “the idealised

power of civilisation and the paternalistic concerns of the nation state”.27

Under these circumstances, the museum which primarily aimed to show Europe that

Ottoman Empire was sharing the same cultural heritage with them copies the European

trends. However it had also one additional purpose: To show that Ottoman Empire was the

owner of these artifacts. The symbolic representation of this situation was found on the

pediment of this new museum building. The inscription on the pediment in Ottoman Turkish

says 'Asar-ı Atika Müzesi' (Ancient Artifacts Museum). The tughra (calligraphic seal) above

this script belongs to the Ottoman Sultan Abdülhamid II. It was the signature of the

Sultan/Ottoman Empire on the heritage that was claimed by Europe.

The architectural style which uses the model of a sarcophagus found within the borders of

the Empire reinterprets this heritage as a local one and emphasizes the shared roots of

Ottomans and Europeans and the inclusion of the Empire to Europe. This new building was

facing the Tiled Kiosk as if trying to strengthen the relation between two styles.

In the following years after the opening of the Sarcophagi Museum, the excavations in the

Empire continued and soon the northern and the southern wings were added to the main

building in 1903 and 1907 respectively.

French historian Charles Diehl explained the rationale for the foundation of this new

museum in the following words:

“No doubt trying to appear European and civilized, Turkey wanted to give itself27 Gürol, P. “Conflicting Visualities on Display: National Museums from the Ottoman Empire to the Turkish Republic” <http://www.ep.liu.se/ecp/030/008/ecp0830008.pdf>

the luxury of collecting antiquities; and, as it possesses at this time more than half

of the ancient Greek world, it did not have to go through much trouble to satisfy

this ambition.” 28

When we consider the contributions of Osman Hamdi Bey in establishing this new museum

we need to underline his success in balancing his position between two worlds to satisfy

both personal and national agendas. He recognized that the continuing contacts with the

West were a necessary component to modernism, just as his position within the Ottoman

bureaucracy was necessary to its success. During his directorship, Imperial Museum became

an institution which could spread the state ideologies from a collection which was formed

rather randomly. His undertakings during the first 10 years of directorship indicate his

willingness to give a national Ottoman identity to the museum of archaeology and his

understanding of the importance to locate the museum in the minds of the local population.

As already been discussed, the museum of archaeology had strong connotations with the

state agenda. Displaying objects, which were mainly Greco-Roman and Byzantine heritage,

found by excavations on the lands under Ottoman hegemony assigns Imperial Museum as a

communicative device to show how the Empire embraced various cultures under its roof.

While European Museums brought collections from around the world, particularly colonized

dependants to emphasize their imperial power, Ottomans used it as a tool to legitimize their

presence on these lands and to cope with increasing nationalism movements.

From Empire to Republic…

Upon the construction of Turkish Republic, one can expect fundamental changes in the

perception of the Imperial Museum, starting from its name. The current name, Istanbul

Archaeological Museums is an outcome of this change. Imperial connotations are not

welcomed anymore. The Imperial Museum, under the supervision of Ministry of Education,

was considered to be a public building with didactic purpose. The purpose was to emphasize

28 Çelik, Zeynep. “Defining Empire’s Partimony: Ottoman Perception of Antiquities” in Archaeologists and Travelers in Ottoman Lands.

the unity of Empire through a collective display of historical commonwealth. The birth of the

Imperial Museum from the collection of archaeological artifacts refers to the empire’s

European aspirations and link to Greco-Roman heritage in addition to empire’s territorial

right to lands claimed by European archaeologists.

In the early Republican era, the museums were still under the supervision of Ministry of

Education until 1970s when they were assigned to Ministry of Culture. However the main

purpose of the display changes radically. The Republican era underlines the importance of

display for the viewing of “locals” who were not taken into consideration in Ottoman

agenda. This change in the perception results in an increasing number of displays of objects

of everyday use. It can also be considered as a one way evolution towards “modern civilized

nation” which includes reforms to homogenize polity and building nation state and national

identity. The readily available Greco-Roman and Byzantine heritage is only referred as the

memoirs of a distant past, however the new attempt is to stretch the origins of Turkish

presence in pre-classical cultures (ie. Hittites & Phyrigians). The physical space of the

museum becomes the place to negotiate boundaries of the past & present and museums

monopolize places and means by which the collective memory was to be stored. 29

Museums were used as effective instruments for the declaration of nationalistic idealism and

progress through modernization for the Republican regime in the early 20th century. The

practice of exhibiting was confined to the collection of historical works, designated to be

displayed as the best representation of the national past. Indeed, the nations which had

revolutions would utilize the museum idea which was for praising historical national entities.

In that sense, the museums in the early Republican era were appropriate tools to suggest a

collective identity for the nation based on the idea of a common culture rooted in common

history.

The first archaeological museum of the new Republic, the Museum of Anatolian Civilizations

displayed the archaeological heritage of the new nation, which was claimed to have been

built mainly upon the Hittites instead of the Greco-Roman culture. In the process of nation

building, the goal of the government was to create a new Turkish identity and Turkish past,

29 Kezer,Z. “Familiar Things in Strange Places: Ankara’s Ethography Museum and The Legacy of Islam in Republican Turkey.”

which depended upon new symbols. And the designated representation was neither

Ottoman nor Greco-Roman, rather Turkish history was constructed through Anatolian

civilizations which was viewed as its own past.30 Besides this, the establishment of those

museums in Ankara, the new capital city of Turkish Republic, in the cradle of Anatolia, was

also a representation of an attempt for a complete break with the Ottoman past. In that

sense, the government decided to make serious rules and regulations about how to classify,

preserve and display the antiquities. The palaces of the Ottoman Sultans which symbolize

the earlier political system of the empire were converted into museums in early republican

years. 31

The Topkapı Palace became a museum in 1924, just after the foundation of the republic, and

it was connected to “Istanbul Archeological Museums” which was now honored with the

transformational assignments. After the declaration of the republic, Santa Sophia and

Topkapı Palace were converted into museums and their directorship was given to Istanbul

Archaeology Museums which no longer was a young institution translating official messages

but a rooted and well-organized institution which was inherited voluntarily by the Turkish

Republic.

And Now….

Due to the need for new exhibition halls, a new building adjacent to the southeastern side of

the main museum building was constructed between 1969 and 1983 and this section was

named the Additional Building (new building) which was opened in 1991 in order to

celebrate the 100th anniversary of the museum.

With this re-organization the İstanbul Archaeological Museums was nominated EMYA

(European Museum of the Year Award) and it received the European Council Museum Prize,

together with the Kobariski Museum in Slovenia.

These additions gave the museum its final shape and space. Currently, on the ground floor

of the Archaeological Museum, sculptures from the Ancient Age from the Archaic Era to the

30 Gürol, P. “Conflicting Visualities on Display: National Museums from the Ottoman Empire to the Turkish Republic” < http://www.ep.liu.se/ecp/030/008/ecp0830008.pdf>

31 Tanyeri-Erdemir ,T. “Archaeology as a Source of National Pride in the Early Years of Turkish REpublic”

Roman Era may be seen in addition to sarcophagi such as the Alexander Sarcophagus, the

Sarcophagus of Crying Women and the Sarcophagus of Tabnit that came from the Royal

Necropolis in Sidon.

On the upper floor of the two-storey building, there are the Treasury section, the Non-

Islamic and Islamic Coin Cabinets and the Library.

The "Surrounding Cultures of İstanbul" section, which was opened in the cellar of the new

building in 1998, is a hall where artifacts from various ages found during excavations at the

surrounding archaeological sites and tumuli. It has sub-sections of "Thrace-Bithynia and

Byzantium". The ground floor of the new building hosts the "Children's Museum" exhibition.

The "İstanbul Through the Ages" collection is exhibited on the first floor of the new building,

the "Anatolia and Troy Through the Ages" collection on the second floor and the

"Surrounding Cultures of Anatolia: Artifacts from Syria, Palestine and Cyprus" collection on

the third floor, in chronological order.

The other two museums which are a part of current Istanbul Archaeological Museums are

The Ancient Orient Museum and Tiled Kiosk Museum. The first one consists of the sections

of Pre-Islamic Arabian Art, Egypt Collection, Mesopotamia Collection, Anatolia Collection,

Urartu Collection and Cuneiform Documents, arranged according to regions.

The collections of the Tiled Kiosk Museum consist of artifacts belonging to the Seljuk and

Ottoman eras, dating from the 11th-20th centuries.

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