Ege Üniversitesi Etnografya Müzesi (Sirkehane)

The Ege University Ethnography Museum stands on the university campus in Bornova, in a historic building known today as the Sirkehane, the Vinegar House. The building was erected between the end of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th century; despite all the research, no information could be found about its first owners. It was transferred to the Treasury in 1943. In the 1960s the rear part of the building was used by the Department of Food and Fermentation Technology of the Faculty of Agriculture as a place for making vinegar and pickles, while the front part became staff housing. The name Sirkehane goes back to this period. In 1990 the building passed from the Treasury to Ege University by exchange, and it was used as a residence until the 1990s. Much of the building had been demolished over the years, and the university rebuilt it faithfully to the original in the 2000s. The restoration was completed on 22 June 2010, and the building first opened as the Ege University Balkans and Anatolian Clothes Museum. After an application to the Ministry of Culture, private museum status was approved in November of the same year, and the name became the Ege University Ethnography Museum. According to Visit İzmir, it is the first museum of its kind opened in Türkiye by a university in partnership with the Ministry of Culture. The exterior, built of stone and brick together, stands out at first glance among the modern faculty buildings on the campus. The museum rests on field research that began in 2004. A team of about twenty people from the Department of Turkish Folk Dance at the university's State Conservatory of Turkish Music collected the folk instruments, folk dances, costumes and music of Anatolia and the Balkans. During the project, more than two hundred scholars and more than nine hundred local informants are said to have been consulted in fourteen Balkan countries. The material gathered was archived as more than twenty thousand photographs and more than two hundred hours of video. According to the university's official page, the museum displays two thousand four hundred and ninety-nine objects from the Balkan countries and the Turkic world, including two thousand one hundred pieces of traditional clothing, one hundred and ten folk instruments, jewellery, accessories, weapons, chests and cupboards. The museum's English page gives a higher number of objects on display, so it is best to treat the figures as approximate. The collection keeps growing through donations; in 2023 nearly three hundred new objects such as carpets, kilims, instruments and copper ware were added to the inventory. The most popular section of the museum is the wedding house. Here traditional 19th century wedding customs, the henna night, the display of the dowry, the preparation of the wedding meal and the listing of the dowry, are brought to life in the setting of an old İzmir house. In a separate section, the workshops of disappearing trades such as woodworking, shoemaking, copper work and tailoring are recreated. Seeing the embroidery that changes from region to region side by side in the costume halls is the easiest way to understand the kinship between the Balkans and Anatolia. In the instrument section you can follow how the same family of instruments changes shape in different regions. Information about the objects is also available through an audio guide. The museum has a temporary exhibition hall and a meeting hall used for talks, panels and recitals. Its garden is arranged with old farm tools, and there is a small cafeteria. The museum is open on weekdays only; check the university's official page for current visiting hours and admission conditions. Workshops and introductory programmes are also organised for school groups. Within a project called Local Culture Workshops, the museum worked with a primary school in İzmir and introduced regional costumes to two hundred pupils. The museum has also held recitals under a project called Folk Songs with Anatolian Stories, in which songs from different regions are performed together with the stories behind them. The easiest way to reach the museum is the Ege Üniversitesi station on the M1 line of the İzmir Metro; the station is inside the campus. Because the campus is large, following the signposts at the entrance or asking the security staff saves time. La Fontaine Mansion is within walking distance on the same campus, and Arkas Sanat Bornova and Paterson Mansion on Mustafa Kemal Caddesi can be reached by a short walk. Stopping at the Sirkehane after visiting Bornova's mansions lets you see the folk culture of Anatolia and the Balkans alongside the Levantine heritage.