Turkey Guide
İstanbul
The Archeology Museum
Address: Sultanahmet
Opening time: Daily except Mon 9am–4pm
Price: Combined entry 5YTL
The Archeology Museum complex, which includes the Museum of the Ancient Orient and Çinili Köşk, can be entered either through Gulhane Parkı or from the first courtyard of the Topkapı Palace.
The Archeology Museum itself (Arkeoloji Müzesi) is centred on the excavations at Sidon in 1887 of Hamdi Bey, the Director of Ancient Antiquities. These brought to light a group of sarcophagi, together with other monuments of Phoenician origin but of quite disparate styles – evidence of the variety of influences absorbed into Phoenician culture from neighbouring civilizations.
The Alexander Sarcophagus is in the second room to the left of the entrance lobby. It's covered with scenes of what is presumed to be Alexander the Great hunting and in battle, but since Alexander himself is known to have been buried in Alexandria this cannot be his sarcophagus. It is ascribed variously by different sources to a ruler of the Seleucid dynasty or to the Phoenician Prince Abdolonyme. It appears that the sarcophagus dates from the end of the fourth century BC. The metal weapons originally held by warriors and huntsmen on the sarcophagi were stolen prior to the excavations of Hamdi Bey, presumably when the burial chambers were looted.
The Museum of the Ancient Orient (Eskı Şark Eserleri Müzesi) – just to the north of the main entrance to the museum complex – contains a small but dazzling collection of Anatolian, Egyptian and Mesopotamian artefacts. The late Hittite basalt lions flanking the entrance look newly hewn, but they actually date from the ninth century BC, giving a taste of the incredible state of preservation of some of the exhibits inside.
The graceful Çinili Köşk or Tiled Pavilion – a few metres north of the Museum of the Ancient Orient – was built in 1472 as a kind of grandstand, from which the sultan could watch sporting activities such as wrestling or polo. It now houses the Museum of Turkish Ceramics, displaying tiles of equal quality to those in Topkapı Palace and İstanbul's older mosques, along with well-written explanations of the different periods in the history of Turkish ceramics.