[ natural science Houston ] [ Carnegie Museum ] [ Museum of Natural History in New York-colored diamonds ]
diamond and jewelry museums
The American Museum of Natural History in New York is exhibiting 25 diamonds
in the museum's Morgan Memorial Hall of Gems.
The new Wertz
Gallery at Carnegie Museum: Gems and Jewelry is a 2,000 square foot
addition to Hillman Hall of Minerals and Gems dedicated to gems, the crystals
from which they come, and jewelry comprised of these precious stones. They open
with a new exhibit and vintage
flower jewelry
Natural
Science museum Houston opens up vault doors of exhibit
A 99-carat center stone is surrounded by another 50 carats of garnets in
shades ranging from deep red to bright orange, all set in 22-karat yellow
gold.
photo
Thomas R. Du Brock: Houston Museum of Natural Science
The centerpiece is a 1,869-carat natural emerald crystal, the largest ever
discovered in North America.
The
natural science museum Houston opens
its new permanent gem exhibit today as a complement to its Cullen Hall Gem and
Mineral collection.
Museums show archaeological and historical wealth of Turkey
see
also the Stolen Jewelry Irak
Museums show archaeological and historical wealth of Turkey
According to the Culture and Tourism Ministry,
museums in Turkey house 1,658,275 coins; 688,032 archaeological and 290,573
ethnographical artifacts; 118,005 tablets; 24,885 manuscripts; and 23,894 seals
and seal stamps, attracting a large number of domestic and foreign visitors
ANKARA - Turkish Daily News Sunday, July 16,
2006 found at turkishdailynews.com.tr
The museums of a country are probably the most distinctive
signs of the importance that country attaches to culture and history. It
can also be said the amount of interest shown in museums depends on how
capable they are of presenting the cultural and archaeological wealth of a
country.
However, Turkey's museums recently came to the agenda due to an
unfortunate event -- the theft and replacement by fakes of pieces from
the Karun Treasure on display in Uşak Archaeology Museum. Turkey
possesses a large number of museums housing its centuries-old cultural heritage.
A total of 2,815,470 pieces are currently on display in 92
museums under the auspices of the Culture and Tourism Ministry, according to the
ministry's data.
The cultural wealth of Anatolia, host of numerous civilizations
throughout history, is attracting many visitors, especially foreign tourists.
Some 2,815,470 cultural/ancient/historic pieces were viewed last
year in museums by around 18,384,865 visitors, bringing in gross receipts of
around YTL 85,481,628.
Museums in Turkey house 1,658,275 coins; 688,032 archaeological
and 290,573 ethnographical artifacts; 118,005 tablets; 24,885 manuscripts; and
23,894 seals and seal stamps.
31 museums reopen after renovation:
Twenty-five museums out of 31 undergoing renovation were open to
visitors last year while Cumhuriyet Museum General Council Hall, Bolu Museum,
İzmir Ödemiş Birgi Çakırağa Mansion, İzmir Tire
Museum, Kütahya Ceramic Museum, Muğla Marmaris Museum, Samsun Gazi Museum
and Sinop Archaeology Museum reopened for visitors this year following
restoration.
A certain day each month was announced as “Public Day” to
enable visitors to visit the museum free of charge on that day in line with a
newly implemented arrangement.
Seventy-eight museums of the Culture and Tourism Ministry possess
electronic security systems whereas 63 of those were in need of revision.
Twelve museums, including Uşak Archeology Museum, which
recently came to the agenda for the theft and replacement by fakes of
pieces from the Karun Treasure on display there, were included in the 2005
investment program while 11 museums are scheduled for the 2006 investment
program, for necessary revision.
Topkapı Palace, housing unique artifacts of the Ottoman
period, remains among the most visited museums in Turkey. According to the
Culture and Tourism Ministry's data, Topkapı Palace attracted 3,122,798
visitors, followed by Hagia Sophia Museum with 2,039,488 visitors, Konya-Mevlana
Museum with 1,390,710, Göreme Open Air Museum with 552,025 and Hacıbektaş
Museum with 466,006.
Topkapı Palace, Hagia Sophia Museum, Göreme Open Air
Museum, Mevlana Museum and Bodrum Underwater Archaeology Museum persistently
remain among the top money earners.
The five leading archaeological sites bringing in the highest
gross receipts are Efes, Troy, Bergama, Aspendos and Perge.
Inventory under way:
While the cases in the Uşak and Kahramanmaraş museums
highlighted the importance of inventory, a comprehensive inventory on displayed
pieces is being conducted throughout Turkey since September. In some museums
inventory commissions were established and the work will continue in 32 museums,
employing at least three specialists.
Museums and cultural assets:
Numerous artifacts unearthed from all over Anatolia are being
displayed in the 92 museums under the auspices of the Culture and Tourism
Ministry.
Some of these museums and the unique artifacts they house are as
below:
Adıyaman Museum: It is the largest museum of the
southeastern region in terms of the value of artifacts it houses. Hatchets,
incisors belonging to Paleolithic period, terracotta vases from the Chalcolithic
period, some ornaments from the Bronze Age and Roman period ceramic cases as
well as seals, ornaments, animal figures, mosaics, golden, silver and bronze
coins and some local ethnographical pieces belonging to different periods are on
display at the museum.
Amasya Museum: The museum serves the central Black Sea region as
the most modern and wealthiest museum with around 24,000 artifacts including
archaeological and ethnographic pieces belonging to 11 civilizations, coins,
manuscripts, seals and a mummy. Bronze and terracotta sarcophaguses and Mehmet
Paşa Mosque's door, dating back to the Ottoman period, are other pieces on
display in the museum while six mummies from the İlhanlılar period are
on display in the Sultan I. Mesud Tomb located in the museum's garden.
Çanakkale Museum: Houses nearly 30,000 artifacts excavated from
200 sites in and around Çanakkale, including the artifacts unearthed from the
excavations in the ancient city of Troy, which have continued since
1870 despite some stops. Fossils, Stone Age axes, Beşige Tepe prehistoric
ruins and Troia layer arts, Buckel ceramics, a stone crystal lion's head, an
amulet, idols and bronze arts reflecting ancient period art of Troia as well as
daily and religious life of the civilization are some of the artifacts on
display in the museum.
Çorum Müzesi: The findings of excavations in Alacahöyük, Boğazköy,
Ortaköy, Eskiyapar, Pazarlı, Kuşsaray and Alişar Höyük form
the core of the museum. Coins, ceramics, glass perfume cups and lachrymatories,
figurines and statuettes, offering cups, steles and jewelry from Hellenistic,
Roman and Byzantine periods are exhibited in typological order in the museum.
Bath basins from the Hittite period, flask shaped cups, vases, fruit stands,
moulds, crucibles, cap-shaped discs and seals from the Hittite and Phrygian
periods and painted cups dating to the Phrygian period are among other artifacts
on display in the museum.
Anatolian Civilizations Museum: An exceptional museum with its
unique collections, the museum features Anatolian archaeological artifacts from
the Paleolithic Age to the present.
Many artifacts from the Paleolithic, Neolithic, Chalcolithic and
Old Bronze ages as well as the Phrygian, Urartian and late Hittites periods are
exhibited in the museum, which was named the "Museum of the Year" in
Switzerland in 1997.
Artifacts including mother goddess sculptures, stamp seals,
earthenware containers, agricultural tools made of bone excavated from the two
important centers of the Neolithic Age, namely Çatalhöyük and Hacılar,
as well as valuable metals, death gifts discovered from royal tombs of Alacahöyük,
ruins from Hasanoğlan, Karaoğlan, Merzifon, Ahlatlıbel, Bolu,
Semahöyük -- dating back to the Old Bronze Age, are among the significant
pieces on display.
Embossed bull figure containers, earthenware artifacts, tablets
of government archives, seals of the kings from the Hittite period and the
collections including Greek, Hellenistic, Roman and Byzantine period artifacts
from the 1st millennium, made of gold, silver, glass, marble, bronze and coins,
can also be seen at the museum.
Ankara Ethnography Museum: Having served as a mausoleum of
Atatürk for 15 years until the completion of Anıtkabir, the current
mausoleum of Atatürk, the founder of the Turkish Republic, has a museum housing
items reflecting public culture and tradition in Anatolia. Carpets, weaving
benches from Uşak, Bergama, Kula, Milas, Karaman and Kırşehir
regions; socks from the Sivas region; sweet boilers, hand washing jugs, trays,
coffee trays, meal tables, cups, candle scissors, arrows, bows, lighting
pistols, rifles and a sword from the Ottoman period as well as Turkish pottery,
Kütahya porcelains, religious and sect properties and Turkish inscriptions are
some of the pieces exhibited in the museum.
Antalya Museum: The museum contains 13 display halls and open
galleries and features fossils of geological periods; a chipped gavel, hand
axes, diggers, bone tools found in the Karain cave and stratigraphies from the
pre-Paleolithic period to the Roman period.
Gaziantep Museum: Findings excavated from more than 30
archeological sites in the region are exhibited in the Gaziantep Museum. Mosaics
excavated from the ancient city of Zeugma possess great archaeological
importance for the museum. In addition to the Zeugma seal collection and
mosaics, the museum houses statues and reliefs unearthed from Belkıs
excavations.
Kahramanmaraş Museum: Having four exhibition sections --
Archeology Hall, Stone Works Hall, Ethnography Hall and Garden and Porch, the
museum contains the findings of Kelibişler Village, Domuztepe and Hopaz
Tumulus excavations as well as some prehistoric artifacts found in the Döngel
cave. Various ceramic works from the Iron Age to the Hellenistic period are
among other items on display in the museum. Some 24,470 movable cultural assets
are recorded in the inventory of the museum; 15,965 of these are coins.
Topkapı Palace Museum: The construction of the palace was
completed during the time of Fatih Sultan Mehmet (the Conqueror) but it
took its present layout in later centuries.
Being the official residence of the Ottoman sultans, Topkapı
Palace was converted into a museum in 1924 in line with Atatürk's directive.
The palace, which remains among other rare museums in the world as preserving
its historical wealth to date, features unique pieces belonging to the Ottoman
period.
The main sections of the palace are Harem; Palace Attire and
Garments; Imperial Treasury; Books, Maps and Calligraphic Documents in the
Topkapı Museum; Miniatures from the Topkapı Palace; Portraits of the
Sultan; Clocks; The Chambers of the Sacred Relics; Porcelains in the
Topkapı Museum; and Guns and Armory.
The Chambers of the Sacred Relics features the relics of the
Prophet Mohammed. In the central display case the personal holy effects of the
Prophet Mohammed are exhibited, including a letter in a gold case, soil from his
grave, several hairs from his beard, his footprint and some of his extracted
teeth.
The numbers of maces, pendants, daggers, chests, book covers,
candelabra, rings and various decorative articles adorned with such stones as
diamonds, emeralds, rubies and brilliant's belonging to Ottoman period as well
as the 86-carat famous Spoonmaker's Diamond, remaining among the world's 22 most
famous diamonds, are exhibited in the Treasury section, while an illuminated
page from a Koran, a map drawn by the 16th Century Turkish geographer Piri Reis
as well as documents related to state and palace business are on display in the
Books, Maps and Calligraphic Documents section.
Haghia Sophia Museum: Hagia Sophia assumed one of the unique
monuments of world architectural history in terms of its architecture,
magnificence, size and functionality, constitutes a synthesis between east and
west with its exceptional history, including interesting forms of Byzantine
architecture, mosaics of the Christian period as well as additions during the
Ottoman era.
Hagia Sophia served as a church for 916 years and a mosque for
481 years; it has been functioning as a museum since 1935. Besides the unique
architecture of the building, the oldest mosaics -- gold gilded with geometrical
and floral designs as well as figural mosaics (with images of Jesus Christ,
Virgin Mary, etc.) from the 9th-12th centuries -- attract thousands of visitors
every year.
Tombs of Sultan Selim II, Sultan Mehmet III, Sultan Murat III;
the fountain of Sultan Mahmut I; a primary school; a soup kitchen; a library;
Sultan Abdülmecit's meeting place and the mosque timekeeper's (astronomer's)
room, reflecting the excellent architectural examples of the Ottoman period, are
among the other attractions located in the Hagia Sophia Museum.
Bergama Museum: Bergama Museum opened for visitors in 1936,
featuring archeological findings excavated from Bergama and its surrounding,
belonging to various periods from the early Bronze Age to the Byzantine period.
Among them are Archaic period findings as well as carpets, kilims of the region
(Yuntdağ, Kozak, and Bergama weavings), cloth weaving samples and some
other handmade stuff belonging to other regions of Anatolia.
Konya Archaeology Museum: The museum exhibits pieces belonging to
Old Bronze, Mid Bronze (Assyrian Trade Colonies), Iron (Phrygian, Urartian),
Classical, Hellenistic, Roman and Byzantine periods, starting from the Neolithic
period.
Malatya Museum: The museum features nearly 15,518 pieces,
including fossils found in the Malatya region, an area possessing rich
archaeological and ethnographic findings, as well as Neolithic, Calcolithic
and Bronze period finds; and Hittite, Urartu, Roman, Byzantine, Seljuk and
Ottoman period pieces.
Manisa Museum: Cult sculptures of Abundance Goddess Kybele and
Athena, Dionysus, Hermes; Roman period sculptures and busts as well as Byzantine
period works including the marble reliefs of the angels Gabriel-Michael and
Mary; a grave fresco with peacock brought from the vaulted grave in Sardis;
various Christian symbols and various types of candles are exhibited at the
museum.
Bodrum Underwater Archaeology Museum: Located in Bodrum Castle,
the museum houses late Roman shipwrecks; amphora, a Turkish bath estimated to
date back to 1890s, coins and jewelry used in the Carian period; and a
shipwreck found in Kaş and Uluburun. In the Carian Princess Hall a
well-preserved interred skeleton surrounded by gold jewelry and ornaments and
estimated to belong to a woman of wealth from the Late Hellenistic-Early Roman
period, as well as some other findings, are exhibited.
Sinop Museum: A rich icon collection depicting Christ, angels,
Mary and saints and bearing the features of Byzantine artistic style; pieces
from the Prehistoric period; and various coins belonging to the Roman,
Byzantine, Seljuk and Ottoman periods are all among the displayed items.
Şanlıurfa Museum: The Şanlıurfa region has a
rich history, including a wealth of tumulus and old settlements. Harran village,
44 kilometers southeast of Şanlıurfa, is a most popular and
interesting area with its authentic architecture. Many rescue excavations were
conducted in the area. Besides artifacts discovered in the excavations in the
village of Harran, other historical and cultural pieces found in other old
settlements and tumulus are exhibited in separate displays arrayed in
chronological order. Sharp tools along with stone idols and cups from the
Neolithic Age; painted and unpainted ceramic objects from the Chalcolithic Age;
amphora pieces marked with stamp seals, cup pieces decorated with figurines,
animal figurines, metal objects, jewelry and idols from the Bronze Age are among
the museum's archaeological wealth.
Uşak Museum: The sculptures belonging to the Old Bronze
period, earthenware pots and glass -- pieces remaining from the Hellenistic and
Roman periods, grave steles, vow steles and atonement inscriptions belonging to
the Roman period are among the displayed items in the museum.
The museum also houses the Lydian treasures, called the "Karun
Treasure," which were smuggled to the United States from the surroundings
of Uşak in the second half of the 1960s but were later brought back to our
country in 1993.
© 2005 Dogan Daily News Inc. www.turkishdailynews.com.tr
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