Ahlat Museum

Ahlat Museum is the only museum in its surrounding area, so it works as a regional museum for the district. Its collection comes from excavations, purchases, confiscations and donations and covers the Bronze Age, Iron Age, Hellenistic, Roman, Seljuk and Ottoman periods. The current displays opened in 2018 and are divided into four areas: archaeology, urban memory, the foyer and the garden.

The archaeological hall follows the region from the Chalcolithic through the Early and Middle Bronze Age and the Urartian Middle Iron Age to the Hellenistic, Roman, Eastern Roman, Seljuk and Ottoman periods. Among its singular objects are a lustre jug, a coin of the Shah-Armens and a sistrum, each telling of the art, daily life and beliefs of its time.

The urban memory hall presents panels on the states that ruled Ahlat, including the Ottoman Empire and the Republic. It covers the Seljuk Square Cemetery, shows a wax figure of Sultan Alparslan and images of the Battle of Manzikert of 26 August 1071. The foyer holds ram-shaped tombstones from the Aq Qoyunlu period and Oghuz stamps, and the garden displays stone works, inscriptions and Islamic-period gravestones.