Adana Müzesi (Müze Kompleksi)

Adana Museum is a large museum complex in the Döşeme neighbourhood of Seyhan district, housed in the restored buildings of the National Textile Factory (Milli Mensucat Fabrikası) near the city's old railway station. Ministry sources present the complex as the largest museum in Turkey and describe it as the largest building in which registered industrial heritage has been turned into a public museum. Two stories are read here one on top of the other; on one side stands the archaeology of Çukurova spanning thousands of years, on the other the more than a century old history of the city's cotton and weaving industry. The museum's own history goes back to the first years of the Republic. Adana Museum was founded in 1924 and is counted among the ten oldest museums in Turkey. The first collection was formed by gathering column capitals and sarcophagi from the surrounding area at the Police Department. In 1928 the museum opened to visitors in the madrasa of the Cafer Paşa Mosque, which stood at the head of Taşköprü and no longer survives. Moved in 1950 to the building in Kuruköprü, the collection was displayed for many years in the new building opened in Reşatbey on 5 January 1972. When that building in turn became too small to protect and display the works, the Ministry decided to convert the old factory into a museum complex and restoration began in 2013. The factory itself is a document worth seeing. It was established at the beginning of the 20th century as a yarn mill by the Simyonoğlu family, who lived in Adana; two separate Ministry texts give the founding year differently as 1906 and 1907. From 1927 the plant operated under the name National Textile Factory and it stopped production in the 1980s. The building was registered as industrial heritage in 2006. The Ministry page notes that the writer Orhan Kemal worked for a time in the factory's accounting department and that what he observed here inspired his novel "Murtaza". The complex opened in stages. The Archaeology Museum, converted from the factory warehouse, began receiving visitors on 18 May 2017. In the second stage two large hangars were turned into a mosaic hall, which opened in 2018. The City, Agriculture and Industry sections were added in 2023, and the cinema, literature, music and sports sections in 2024. According to Ministry figures, 53,697 works are registered in the museum inventory, and only a small part of them, about 3,365 pieces together with thematic objects, is on display. In the archaeology section the human story is told chronologically in eight halls, from prehistory to the Ottoman period. Finds from the excavations at Tatarlı Höyük, Sirkeli Höyük, Tepebağ Höyük, Misis, Anavarza and Magarsus come together in these halls. The most striking work is the stone statue of the Storm God Tarhunda, about 2.5 metres high, standing on a chariot drawn by bulls. This statue was found in 1998 buried in a field in the village of Cine in Adana. A stele with Anatolian hieroglyphic inscriptions and a Babylonian stele can be seen in the same section. According to the Ministry source, a bronze male statue recovered from the sea off Karataş is also among the highlights of the collection. Roman sarcophagi are displayed in the glazed gallery; the long side of the Achilles Sarcophagus, found in Tarsus in 1958, shows the scene of the Trojan hero Hector being returned in exchange for a ransom. The mosaic hall is the most impressive part of the complex. Mosaics recovered through rescue excavations in central Adana and its districts have been laid on the floor in the arrangement in which they were found, and the total area reaches 850 square metres. The mosaic depicting Noah's Flood, discovered at Misis in 1956, is remembered as the first mosaic rescued in the city; after the small mosaic museum at Misis was closed, these works were moved here. The Hippocampus and Eros mosaic, found on the floor of a Roman villa in the ancient city of Aigeai in Yumurtalık, is presented as the only known example in Turkey with its image of Erotes riding sea horses. The Peaceable Kingdom mosaic, whose Greek inscription describes animals living together in peace, is also among the hall's important works. Two Tethys mosaics from Anavarza and Yumurtalık offer a chance to see different interpretations of the same subject side by side. The industry and city sections occupy the factory's production and social spaces. The City Museum tells the story of Adana's urbanisation, its old bazaars, its educational history and its trades through models and reconstructions. The Agriculture Museum shows the abundance of the Çukurova plain through crops such as cotton, watermelon, sunflower, citrus, karakılçık wheat and sugar cane. The Industry Museum covers the contribution of cotton to the city's industry, while the National Textile Museum presents the factory's production process with machines, models and archive documents. Because the complex is large, it is wise to set aside at least half a day. Visiting the archaeology halls first, then the mosaic hangar, and ending the day in the factory sections keeps the chronology intact. According to the Ministry brochure the museum is closed on Mondays; check current opening hours and admission conditions on muze.gov.tr. The museum can be reached from the city centre by shared minibus, taxi and municipal buses. Taşköprü and the historic centre on the banks of the Seyhan are a short drive away, so it is easy to combine the museum with a walk through old Adana on the same day.