Erimtan Archaeology and Arts Museum

Erimtan Archaeology and Arts Museum is a cultural institution in which many valuable works from the Roman, Urartian, Hittite, and Byzantine ages within Yüksel Erimtan’s collection are displayed using innovative techniques, and which hosts many interdisciplinary and artistic events curated with a contemporary museology approach.

As of the first quarter of 2015, three old Ankara houses located in the Castle Square, one of Ankara’s oldest settlements, were transformed, while preserving their historical and architectural values, into the museum building to host this special archaeological collection. The museum, which contains a collection ranging from 3000 B.C. up until the Byzantine Period, features a narrative told through contemporary display techniques. With the aim of carrying the livelihood in the museum displays over to areas outside exhibition spaces, the museum boasts an additional exhibition space for temporary exhibitions, a multi-purpose hall to host events on arts, culture, and the sciences, a workshop that hosts educational programs for museum visitors of all ages, a museum shop that features original designs, a cafe where visitors can rest, and a library that will be accessible to researchers upon completion.

The Erimtan Archaeology and Arts Museum collection is a special archaeology collection featuring two thousand movable works, most of which have their origins in Anatolia. The collection was born when Yüksel Erimtan purchased his first Roman ring stones in 1960, and expanded over time with advice from expert archeologists. The collection, which covers the period of time from 3000 B.C. up until the Byzantine Empire, includes works that belong to civilizations such as the Hittites, Urartu, Assyrians, Achaemenids, and Byzantines.

The majority of the works in the collection are comprised of finds from the Late Hellenistic and Roman Ages. These finds include bowls, jugs, cups, measuring cups, rings, glass cups, perfume bottles, ring stones engraved with seals, tweezers, golden crowns, jewellery, mirrors, glass mixing sticks, and many gold, silver, and bronze coins.

The works in the museum collection not only emphasize the cultural legacy of the Anatolian landscape, but have also been brought together in a way that presents the viewer with unconventional exhibition methods that highlight the visual value of the works, while allowing viewers to draw parallels between the works and elements from their contemporary daily lives.

Ceramic Works

Ceramics entered daily life in the Near East starting in 7000 B.C. for storage, cooking, and transportation purposes, and spread rapidly thanks to its ease of production and resistance to heat. The sturdiness of ceramic has allowed many works to be preserved until today. Among works that inform us about the economic, political, social and cultural advancements of the society in which they were used are beak-mouthed ceramic pitchers that are characteristic of the Anatolian Bronze Age, pots and pans from East Anatolia Van-Urmia and Urartu, and Proto-Geometric embellished ceramics from Cyprus and Western Europ

Works in Glass

The Erimtan Archaeology and Arts Museum collection contains 273 works made of glass. The pieces in the collection were produced using free-blowing and mold-blowing techniques between the 1st and 3rd centuries B.C., when Anatolia was under Roman rule. The biggest part of the collection is comprised of small scent containers or perfume bottles that were placed as gifts inside Roman graves, as part of a widespread tradition

Works in Bronze

Among the 364 bronze works in the collection that range from the Old Bronze Age until the Byzantine Period are war tools like spears, arrowheads, and axes; jewellery such as bracelets, rings, armbands, neck pieces, belts, pins and fibula; quotidian tools such as oil lamps, crosses, mirrors, tweezers, strigils, swings, and bowls, as well as pieces like rhytons and devotional placards used during religious ceremonies

Ring Stones

The Erimtan Archaeology and Arts Museum collection features 176 seal stones and 92 rings. The seal rings, which include detailed embellishments carved with expert craftsmanship onto small, semi-precious stones, were used as personal seals. The seal rings, which make up a special group within the larger collection, represent the finest samples of the art of glyptics.

Coins

The Erimtan Archaeology and Arts Museum collection holds 563 coins. Coins are created by minting metals like gold, silver, and copper and carry the official stamp of the ruling political power. 80 of the coins in the collection are gold, while the rest are silver, bronze, and gold-silver alloys. Majority of the coins belong to the Hellenistic, Roman and Byzantine Periods.

Jewellery

The jewellery within the Erimtan collection are grouped into grave goods, necklaces, pendants, bracelets, rings, earrings, armbands, and pins. Majority of the jewellery in the collection belong the Roman Age.