Van Museum

Van is one of the oldest settled places in the story of civilisation. On the shores of Lake Van and on the Silk Road, it was the capital of the Urartian kingdom and remained important in Seljuk and Ottoman times. The idea for a museum here first arose in 1932, to keep in one place the movable heritage found in the province. It began as a museum office in 1945 and became a museum directorate in 1972, and the modern building that opened in 2019 replaced earlier premises.

The galleries run in chronological order, from the Palaeolithic through the Neolithic, Chalcolithic, Urartian, Persian, Roman, Byzantine, Seljuk and Turkish-Islamic periods to the Ottomans. The complex covers about ten thousand square metres indoors, with a large number of halls, a conference hall, classrooms, a library, children's play areas, a souvenir stand, temporary exhibition halls and a cafeteria.

The museum is best known for its Urartian collection, including bracelets, arm bands, belts, earrings, beads and votive plaques, and parts of furniture that show the metalworking skills of the Urartians. Another highlight is a group of thirteen limestone stelae from the Early Iron Age, found by chance in 1998 below Mir Castle in the centre of Hakkari. Eleven show men and two show women, probably local lords and their wives, carved with different techniques and shown with local headdresses and weapons, along with tents and wild animals.