Guide
This is Antalya's ethnographic museum, in Kaleiçi, the old quarter in the centre of the city, at Kilincarslan Mahallesi, Mermerli Banyo Sokak No 17, within walking distance of the centre. It was made by adapting two nineteenth-century mansions of Ottoman character. Because they stand on sloping ground they are known simply as the Lower Mansion and the Upper Mansion, and the two hold quite different collections.
The Lower Mansion holds Turkish and Islamic works. On its first floor are Seljuk tile revetments taken from the theatre at Aspendos, which the Seljuks converted into a winter palace, alongside Ottoman tiles; ceramics made at İznik, Kütahya and Çanakkale between the sixteenth and twentieth centuries; and glass oil lamps together with vessels for tulips, roses and sherbet. A further section on the same floor shows objects found in excavations within Kaleiçi itself. The second floor is given to Ottoman arms — arrows, bows, archers' rings, swords, flintlock and percussion pistols and guns, powder flasks and oil containers — with medals and orders, seals, amulets, talismanic squares and chained watches, and examples of calligraphy such as hilye panels and diplomas.
The Upper Mansion is about how people lived. Its first floor shows Ottoman timber ceilings, doors, window shutters, door knockers and keys; saddlebags, sacks, spindle holders and kilims; local musical instruments; and the Döşemealtı carpets particular to this region, with a loom and a range of weaving samples, next to a small reconstruction of an Ottoman Antalya kitchen. The second floor reconstructs a Kaleiçi household of the period — the principal room where guests were received, the everyday room that served for eating and sitting, the bedroom and the bathroom — together with dress of the period and a display on coffee culture.
The garden is part of the visit. A Seljuk tower inscription of the thirteenth century stands there with other Seljuk conquest inscriptions, and beside them Ottoman inscriptions, gravestones, cannon and cannonballs. The museum is open every day and entry is free, though visiting hours differ between summer and winter.
