Karaman Museum

The museum sits in the centre of Karaman, right behind the Hatuniye Madrasa, one of the loveliest works of the Karamanid principality. Museum activity began in 1961 and the present building opened in 1980, and its collections have kept growing. Karaman was the Karamanid capital, which gives the visit an extra layer of local history.

The exhibition hall is divided into two parts. The archaeology section shows objects from many civilisations, from the Epipalaeolithic up to the Eastern Roman period. It features important works from the Canhasan mounds, a major Chalcolithic centre in Anatolia, and from the ancient city of Philadelphia at Gökçeseki, described as a rare medical centre of Central Anatolia.

The ethnography section displays items from the Anatolian Seljuk beyliks, the Ottoman and Republican periods. In the museum garden, look for grave steles, mainly Roman, and pieces from the Eastern Roman and Turkish-Islamic periods.