Amasya Museum

The Amasya Museum houses two collections worth your time. The ethnographic section occupies a beautifully restored Ottoman building and covers the domestic life, costumes, and crafts of the region across several centuries. It is the kind of collection that most provincial Turkish museums do well, and this is a good example.

The centrepiece, however, is the mummy room. Seven naturally preserved corpses from the 13th–14th century Mongol Ilkhanate period are displayed here, their faces weathered but remarkably intact. They were found beneath a mosque in the city in the 1930s and have been here ever since. The display is matter-of-fact rather than sensationalist, and the informational context provided is genuinely useful. Allow an hour for both buildings.

things to do museum
A story
The museum's mummy collection dates from the Mongol Ilkhanate period of the 13th–14th centuries. The seven mummies were discovered in the Burmalı Minare Mosque complex in 1930, apparently the embalmed remains of senior court officials. The embalming technique used was not the Egyptian method but a different process involving herbal preservatives — and the results are striking. Their faces are still recognisable after seven centuries.

Other places in Things to Do