Guide
The Burdur Museum stands in the centre of the town and shows archaeological and ethnographic material. It occupies the library building of the Bulguroğlu medrese, also known as the Pirkulzade medrese, together with new annexes built to match that historic building. It opened to visitors in 1969. In 2008 it was a candidate for European Museum of the Year and received an award as a museum worth visiting.
The works at the core of the collection began to be gathered in 1956 and were kept in the library building of the medrese. The display halls opened on 12 June 1969. As the building proved too small, land for expansion was expropriated in 1992; work begun in 2001 added display halls, an administrative building and conference halls. The foundation of the annexe was laid on 9 June 2001 by İstemihan Talay, culture minister of the day, and after six years of work the museum opened its doors to visitors and to scholars on 7 July 2006, the opening performed by the culture and tourism minister Atilla Koç.
Of the museum's holdings, twenty thousand are archaeological, thirty-four thousand are coins of the Persian, Classical, Hellenistic, Roman, Byzantine, Seljuk and Ottoman periods, and close to four thousand are ethnographic. The works were gathered as gifts from the people of Burdur or bought from them. By 2023 the museum held more than 69,000 objects.
A statue of Dionysos is among its important pieces. Art historians and archaeologists accept that this is the statue of the wine god that stood on the left-hand side of the Antonine fountain in antiquity, one of a pair flanking it. It came to light during the excavations begun in 1989 at the ancient city of Sagalassos, within the Ağlasun district, under Professor Marc Waelkens.
Also from Sagalassos are the friezes of the dancing girls and a bronze torso thought to be that of the Roman emperor Valerian; the head of that torso is believed to be in the Getty Museum in the United States and its foot in a private collection in Denmark.
Since 1986 the museum has held a yearly cartoon competition on the theme of antiquities, museums and people, with the prize-giving on 18 May, International Museum Day.
Visit status for this record: open to visitors.
