İzmir - Bergama Museum

İzmir - Bergama Museum



As the result of the archaeological excavations that started in Bergama in 1878 under the direction of Carl Humman and Alexander Conze, a depot museum has been constructed near the German Excavation House of today during the excavations made in the acropolis between the years 1900 - 1913. This depot is one of the two archaeological opus depots that existed in Turkey at that time. The excavations in Bergama, which were interrupted because of the 1st World War, were re - started under the direction of Theodor Wiegand. In the same year, with the start of the excavations in Asklepieion in addition to the acropolis excavations, the number of opuses has increased and a new museum building was needed.

Marshall Fevzi Çakmak, who came to Bergama in 1932 has closely interested with the issue and ordered the foundation of a new museum after his visit. For the new building that was planned to be constructed with Turkish - German cooperation, the location of today which is an old cemetrey has been found appropriate. The project that was prepared by the architects Bruno Meyer and Harold Hanson was completed at the end of 1932 and the works for base excavation were started in 1933 with the formal request of the governor of İzmir, Kazım Dirik. Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, who visited Asklepieion, which was a health centre, during his visit to Bergama on April 13th 1934, has seen that the construction of the museum building was continuing.

Bergama museum, whose construction has been completed, was opened for visit on October 30th 1936 by the governor of İzmir, Fazlı Güleç. The museum building consisted of a large rectangular courtyard surrounded with galleries, and a rectangular exhibition hall behind this courtyard. Since the galleries of the courtyard were suitable for open - air museum, the opuses were exhibited there. When Ethnography and Archaeology Museum was taken into operation in Bergama Public House building in 1924, the archaeological opuses were taken to the new museum building. The ethnographic opuses were taken into the museum building of today in 1979 after the construction of the additional building. The additional building has a rectangular plan placed beside the part, in which the courtyard and exhibition hall exist, its entrance is provided via a door opening from the courtyard to the hall. Units such as depot, laboratory, photograph room, archive have been added to the other side of the museum which was left empty and to its rear part.

Most of the archaeological opuses in the museum, which belong to various periods from early bronze era to the Byzantine Period, have been found in the excavations made in Bergama and its surrounding. Among the finds found in the archaic residences around, samples belonging to Pergfamon sculpture school, Archaic Period finds coming from Pitane and Gryneion, Myrina terracotta draw attention. In the ethnography section, carpets, kilims of the region (Yuntdağ, Yağcıbedir, Kozak, Bergama weavings), cloth weaving samples, hand works and other hand made opuses belonging to other regions of Anatolia are exhibited