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 THE
ARCHEOLOGICAL MUSEUM OF öDEMiŞ |
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idea of establishing a museum at Ödemiş, which is located on a fertile valley lying
among the mountains Bozdağlar in the north and Aydın in the south and irrigated with
Küçük Menderes river, first emerged in 1974. |
The first concrete step towards that end
was taken when during the 1975 - 1976 period Mutahhar Başoğlu, a collector
himself,
donated two plots of land totalling 2772 meter square to the Treasury, to be used for a
museum building.
This land was allocated to the General Directorate of Ancient Works and
Museums of the Ministry of Culture and Tourism on 4.1.1977 by the Ministry of
Finance. The
General Directorate started the construction of the museum within the same year and it was
completed in 1983. Before Ödemiş Museum came into being, the items from the area were
being kept and cared for at İzmir Archeology Museum and the Tire Museum. They were later
transfered back from both museums. In order to achive chronological
unity, the missing and
needed archeological and ethnographic items and coin samples were selected from various
museums and transferred to the Ödemiş Museum. |
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| The
museum, which is designed in a tent form, has a basement and only
one floor above it, and consists of a single hall. In the building which was originally
conceived as an ethnographical museum, archeological items from the environs are also
displayed in addition to ethnographic material. The displays of the archeological section
are mostly from Old Bronze Age (3000 B.C) and Archaic (700
- 480 B.C) Classic (480
- 330 B.C), Hellenistic (330 - 30
B.C), Roman (30 B.C - 395)
and Byzantine (395
- 1453)
periods. There are ceramics, idols, blades and
axes, oil lamps, bronze pieces, glass pieces,
ornaments, baked earth statuettes, and marble
statuettes. There are also a total of 2545 coins in the archeological section from the
Hellenistic, Roman, Byzantine, Seljuk and Ottoman
periods. The ethnography section
contains various weapons, copper and silver items, glass pieces,
ornaments, embroderies,
and costume samples, mostly belonging to the Ottoman period. |
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| There are also examples of
handicrafts from the Republican period of Turkey. There is a total of 4458 items at the Ödemiş
Museum. A group of
archeological and ethnographic material was donated by the collector Muhtar Başoğlu,
some were purchased and other confiscated items. |
| ÇAKIRAĞA
MANSION |
It is
one of the rare mansions, whose architectural style
special to the Aegean region could be protected
until today. The construction of the mansion is
known to be started in 1761 by Şerif Aliağa.
Furthermore, the rich, colorful and ornamented style
of the mansion show that it has been constructed in
the first half of 19th century.
The ground floor walls of the mansion having three
floors, external sofa, double large wooden house
rooms are made with stone building and the mid and
upper floor walls are made with fill in wooden
framework technique. Entrance to the mansion having
an internal garden is provided via two separate
large, wooden doors. In the ground floor covered
with stone plates, the locations for the service
personnel, guard, guest acceptance, stable and
hayloft are located. Access from the ground floor to
the upstairs is provided by a wooden stair having
rails. |
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In
the intermediate floor, having a lower ceiling in
comparison with other floors, which is used in
winter, there are five rooms and a toilet. From
the hall of the intermediate floor, the upper
floor having a high ceiling, which is used in
summer is reached again with a wooden, internal
staircase. The upper floor has a long, rectangular
plan with an open sofa, as is the case for the
intermediate floor. It has two doorsteps, two
projections, two large wooden house rooms. The
ceilings and walls of the upper floor are
ornamented with rich plant and fruit motifs and
city panoramas. The windows provide illumination
in the form of two rows, being flat in the lower
part and arched stained glass in the upper part.
The mansion, which has been constructed in the
second half of the 18th century and the
restoration of which is understood to be made in
the first half of 19th century draws attention
with the wood workmanship and panoramas. These
ornaments have reached today without any
deterioration.
The mansion, which has been used as a residence
until recent times (1950), has been transferred to
the Ministry of Culture. |
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| The repair
of the mansion has been started in 1977 and some houses
around the mansion have been nationalized in 1983. After
the completion of works for the internal arrangement and
exhibition, the mansion has been opened for visit in 1995.
Another place that is open for visit is the oriental house
just beside the mansion. |
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