Showing posts with label Ankara. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Ankara. Show all posts

Monday, September 6, 2010

Ankara Museum of Anatolian Civilizations

Virtually every piece in the world-class Museum of Anatolian Civilizations would be a signature exhibit in a lesser museum. For its size, the MAC (my abbreviation) is the most amazing archaeology museum i've ever seen. The artifacts amply cover the neolithic, Hittite, neo-Hittite and Phrygian civilizations of Anatolia, with some great Urartian finds and even Ankara's own unique Anthropithecus species. Here are a few of my favorites:

Ataturk's Mausoleum

Love him or hate him, Mustafa Kemal "Ataturk" is for Turkey what the founding fathers would be for the US if they were all one guy. He's probably even more than that, considering the educational, language and social reforms he pushed through. His mausoleum in Ankara is appropriately impressive.