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Amasya Museum
South bank · Üçler neighbourhood1 · founded 1925, in its present building since 19803
This museum is a time tunnel: you start in the Chalcolithic and pass through
the Bronze Age and the Hittite, Phrygian, Urartian, Scythian, Persian,
Hellenistic, Roman, Byzantine and Seljuk periods to arrive at the
Ottomans.3 Eight mummies lie in the mummies hall on the second
floor. Dating from the Ilkhanid period, the 14th century, they are thought to
belong to people who served as emirs and governors in Amasya, and to their
families.4 Since 2012 they have been displayed in specially made
glass cases.3
- Teshub: a figurine of Teshub, the storm god, on the first floor.3
- The lost doors: the door of Gökmedrese Mosque,
the window shutters of Bayezid II Mosque and the
door of Mehmet Paşa Mosque, on the second floor.
The missing pieces of the mosques you visit are here.3
- The garden: stone works from the Hittites to the Ottomans, and the
Sultan Mesud Tomb.3
The mummies leave the crypt A memory · 1928
In 1928 a young teacher, Tekin Tutak, is given the job of arranging the newly
founded museum. In the crypt of the tomb next to the Burmalı Minare lie dried
bodies that the people call “the martyrs”. When the teacher offers
to move them to the museum, the governor hesitates: You know the people
here; they will react against us.
The young teacher is sure of himself:
They love me; they won't do anything.
The four workers hired for the
job refuse to enter the crypt, saying “we'll be struck down”; the
work is done with soldiers from the barracks. The teacher pays the price: the
neighbours turn on his mother, Of all the children you could have borne,
did you bear an infidel?
, and his father disowns him. Tutak told all this
to Süheyl Ünver in 1962.5
Stop page: the museum's three moves, and the mummies →
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Miniature Amasya Museum
South bank · the imaret building of the Bayezid II Complex3, 4 · since 20103
A city that fits into one hall: Amasya in 1914, at a scale of 1/150.
2300 buildings, more than a thousand trees, the Yeşilırmak flowing through
the middle, the castle and Mount Harşena.3 The lights change, and
you see the city by day and by night. When night falls, 2000 stars and the
moon light up on the vaulted ceiling, and now and then a star shoots
across;3, 4 the sounds of the city can be heard over soft
music.4 The miniature was built using a photograph taken in 1914,
aerial photographs, zoning plans, travel accounts and the Ottoman
archives.3, 4
For the sharp-eyed visitor What do the documents say?
The train in the miniature moves.3, 4 But according to the book,
the railway reached Amasya in 1927;6 so that train would only
arrive thirteen years after the year the miniature shows. And when it did
arrive, the city could not keep still. The local newspaper describes the
evening of 31 October 1927 like this: …the shrill, nimble voice of the
locomotive rang across the city's horizon. Ah…! That sound…!
The people of
Amasya threw themselves at the first locomotive, wanting to love it, to
stroke it … almost to kiss it and take it into their very souls.
7
What happened to the city in the miniature? A witness
As Osman Fevzi Olcay tells it, during the years of the First World War, one
evening in Ramadan, right at the breaking of the fast, a fire that started in a
carpenter's shop turned the city to ashes in four hours. Olcay's reckoning:
Three thousand one hundred and thirty houses, two thousand shops, seventeen
inns, nineteen mosques, three churches, seven baths and ten dervish
lodges…
8 The city you see in this hall is the Amasya before
that evening.
The complex the museum is in: Bayezid II →
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Sabuncuoğlu Şerefeddin Museum of Medical and Surgical History
South bank · the Darüşşifa (Bimarhane) building · since 20113
You walk through the history of medicine inside a building that was built as
a hospital: the museum is in the Amasya Darüşşifa, built in
1308-1309.3 It is named after the surgeon Sabuncuoğlu Şerefeddin,
the best known of the physicians trained in this hospital.3 The
building changed hands before it became a museum: in 1941 it was a museum
storehouse, after 1997 a fine arts gallery, and until 2010 a state
conservatory; in 2011 Amasya Municipality turned it into a museum.3
- The doorway: on the keystone of the arch sits a human figure,
kneeling, with its back turned.9
- The staff: the endowment records list a physician, a physician's
assistant and three “chain-keepers”.9
- The sound: according to Çobanoğlu, the mentally ill were treated
here with music and the sound of water.9
On the trail of Lokman Hekim What do the people tell?
The people of Amasya tell how Lokman Hekim, the healer who found the cure for
death, lost his secret to the river at Kunç Bridge; they connect the grass
that stays green summer and winter at the bridge's feet to the same
story.
10 The documents, for their part, say this: the first
physician of this hospital was Reşideddin Lokman.
9 The historian
Abdîzâde sees this real physician behind the legend: Lokman Mountain, Lokman
Pasture and Lokman Water take their names from his property.
11
The whole legend is on the
Kunç Bridge stop page.
Stop page: the darüşşifa and Sabuncuoğlu →
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Hazeranlar Mansion
North bank · Hatuniye neighbourhood1 · a museum since 198412
Be the guest of an Ottoman mansion. It was built in 1865 by Hasan Talat
Efendi, the treasurer (defterdar) of Ziya Paşa, governor (mutasarrıf) of
Amasya; it is named after Hazeran Hanım, who lived here for many
years.3, 4 The rooms are furnished with 19th-century life:
bedroom, sitting room, dowry room, selamlık (the men's reception room) and
pantry.3 Carpets, kilims, bindallı dresses, silver jewellery,
gold-thread embroidery and kitchenware are on display; the basement is a fine
arts gallery.3, 4
The treasurer's superior was a poet
The superior of the treasurer who built the mansion, the governor Ziya Paşa,
was a famous poet. He arrived in December 1863 by way of Samsun, “cutting
through snow as tall as a man”, fell ill as soon as he arrived and was
bedridden for months; even so, in his two years in office he had a bridge, a
market and covered bazaar, new roads, schools and clock towers
built.13 Amasya's own clock tower first rose in 1865 by his
hand.4
What do the documents say? A difference in dates
The Ministry of Culture expropriated the mansion; its restoration began in
late 1979, ended in 1983, and the mansion opened as a museum on
17 August 1984.12 The city guide and Akgül give the same
years.3, 4 Uzundal, however, relying on Menç, writes that the
mansion was bought and restored in 1985.14 Since three sources agree
on 1984, that is the date we use.
Stop page: the boathouse and the mansion's architecture →
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Princes' Museum (Özel Şehzadeler Müzesi)
North bank · at the foot of Alçak Bridge4 · since 20083
A two-storey timber house sitting on the old city walls by the
river.4 A Yalıboyu mansion built in the 1800s, it was restored in
2007 and opened as a museum in 2008.3 Inside are statues of twelve
Ottoman princes whose paths crossed Amasya, dressed in the clothes of their
times.4
Upper floor · those who took the throneBayezid I (Yıldırım), Mehmed I (Çelebi),
Murad II, Mehmed II (the Conqueror), Bayezid II, Selim I (Yavuz), Murad III3, 4
Lower floor · those who did notSüleyman the Magnificent's sons Şehzade Mustafa
and Şehzade Bayezid; Murad II's sons Şehzade Ahmed and Şehzade Alaeddin; Bayezid II's
son Şehzade Ahmed3, 4
What do the documents say?
The museum counts all seven sultans as having spent their princehood in
Amasya.4 The sources go into more detail: twelve princes were sent
to Amasya as governors (sancakbeyi), and six of them later took the throne.
The first was Bayezid I, who came in 1386; the last was Murad III, who came in
1566.15 Mehmed II is disputed: Hüseyin Hüsameddin writes that he was
appointed in 1438, while Halil İnalcık finds this doubtful.15
Selim I's tie to Amasya is a different one: he was born here, in the palace
where the princes lived.15
“Hey, okra men!” What do the people tell?
The story goes that Mehmed I used to have the horsemen of Amasya and Merzifon
play cirit (the javelin game on horseback) at Yedikır; at the most exciting
moment of the match he could not hold himself back and shouted Hey, okra
men! Hey, cabbage men!
Merzifon cabbage being famous, the people of
Merzifon became “the cabbage men” and the people of Amasya
“the okra men”, and the names stuck.16
The prince downstairs: Mustafa Through a traveller's eyes
When Süleyman's son Şehzade Mustafa was killed in 1553,15 Amasya went
into mourning. Hans Dernschwam, of the Habsburg embassy that came to Amasya
soon afterwards, wrote along the way: On the roads we travelled we found the
people grieved and angry.
The envoy Busbecq recorded the shadow that fell
on the city's name: The city, unlucky since the time of Bayezid, was
believed to be thoroughly ill-starred after the Mustafa affair.
17
The bridge in front of the museum: Alçak Bridge →
The Princes' Route →
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Şeyh Hamdullah Museum of the History of Writing and Calligraphy
North bank · Hatuniye neighbourhood1 · since 201818, 19
It is named after the calligrapher Şeyh Hamdullah, who was born in
Amasya.20 Inside, the story of writing begins with Sumerian, Egyptian
and Hittite scripts, and the book arts of binding, marbling (ebru) and
illumination are explained too.21 According to the Governorship's
announcement, visitors can examine works by Şeyh Hamdullah, by other important
calligraphers of the past and by calligraphers of today.18 Amasya
Municipality founded the museum; it opened to visitors in the summer of
2018.18, 19
Who was Şeyh Hamdullah?
He was born in Amasya, in the Eslem Hatun neighbourhood; according to the
sources, his year of birth lies between 1426 and 1436.20 He won the
friendship of Bayezid II while Bayezid was governor in Amasya;15, 20
when Bayezid came to the throne, Hamdullah went to Istanbul at his invitation.
The sultan made him his own calligraphy teacher and received his licence
(icazet) from him. He was called “kıbletü'l-küttâb”, the qibla of
scribes, and is regarded as the founder of the Ottoman school of calligraphy.
He died in 1520 and, as he had wished, was buried in Karacaahmet Cemetery in
Üsküdar.20 The book, too, lists “Hattat Hamdullah”
(Hamdullah the calligrapher) among the people Amasya produced.6
Where the staff fell What do the people tell?
The story goes that Prince Bayezid had a dream; Şeyh Hamdullah read it as a
sign that he would be sultan, and added:
If you become sultan, do not put
Amasya out of your heart.
When Bayezid, now on the throne, asked
“What shall we do for Amasya?”, the sheikh threw his staff from
Sarayözü; it landed on the spot, then covered in woods, where the
Bayezid Mosque stands today.
16
Another tradition tells the reunion of teacher and pupil differently: in
Istanbul a palace gatekeeper has someone write out a petition he is to present
to the sultan; as Bayezid reads it, he recognises his teacher's hand and
realises that he has come to Istanbul.
15
What do the documents say? According to the inscription over the
portal, building began in 890/1485 and was finished in 891/1486.
22
Don't confuse them
The
Hamdullah Efendi Tomb in the Sofular
neighbourhood belongs to another Hamdullah: it was built in 1846-47 for a
postnişin (head) of the Hacı Bektaş Veli lodge who had been exiled to
Amasya.
6
In the same neighbourhood: Hazeranlar Mansion ↑
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Saraydüzü Barracks National Struggle Museum and Congress Centre
North bank · about 120 metres from Kunç Bridge as the crow flies
In June 1919, while he was in Amasya, Mustafa Kemal Paşa used Saraydüzü
Barracks as his base; the Amasya Circular was drafted there.4 The
museum has reliefs and statues telling the story of those days, documents of
the period and weapons; wax figures of Mustafa Kemal with Rauf Orbay and Ali
Fuat Cebesoy are here too.3, 4 The building is also a congress
and cultural centre.4
“Write!” A witness
On the night of 21 to 22 June, the aide who put the circular on paper, Cevat
Abbas (Gürer), described the room years later like this: ‘Write!...’
Atatürk's steel-willed order freed the minds lined up waiting in the room from
idle thoughts, and set me in motion too.
When the time came to sign, Rauf
Bey hesitated: I am still only your guest.
The answer was firm: You
are a well-known son of the country. Your signature must be on the document of
a new history that we are writing.
23 When you pass the wax
Rauf Orbay, remember that night.
And the telegraph
The decisions of the National Struggle spread along the wires. When a
journalist asked Mustafa Kemal in 1923 what he had won the struggle with, his
answer was short: With the telegraph wires!
24
What do the documents say?
The building you see is not the original barracks. The barracks built in
1898-1900 were demolished in 1944; the present building was rebuilt, true to
the original, in a different place on the riverbank, because of the danger of
landslides.3, 4
Stop page: five lives on one site →
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Ferhat and Şirin Lovers' Museum
Outside the centre · Helvacı neighbourhood1 · since 20132
A museum set up by Amasya Municipality in the area of the water channel that
Ferhat is said to have cut for Şirin.2 Each section tells a
different love story: besides Ferhat and Şirin, Leyla and Mecnun, Kerem and
Aslı, Romeo and Juliet.2, 21 The Ministry of Culture and
Tourism's promotional site presents it as the first and only lovers' museum
in Türkiye.21
The secret of Kanlıpınar What do the people tell?
Evliya Çelebi heard this story in Amasya. As he tells it, when a witch told
Ferhat the lie “Şirin is dead”, Ferhat threw his pickaxe into the
air and held his head beneath it; that is why the place is called Kanlıpınar,
“the bloody spring”. Evliya also sees a secret at the lovers'
grave: Two roses are planted, one on Ferhad and one on Şirin; as they reach
to embrace each other, the thorns of the blackthorn growing on that witch push
in between them and keep them apart. A strange secret.
17 Even
the museum's neighbourhood has found its way into the story; an Amasya mâni
begins: A witch in Helvacı / Was the end of Ferhat…
25
What do the documents say?
Ferhat and Şirin is a folk tale. The channel itself, however, is a real water
structure. We tell the two separately on the stop page.
Stop page: Ferhat Water Channel →