Turkey. 7000 Years of history

The exhibition is curated by Louis Godart and presents the treasures of the Topkapi Palace Museum in Istanbul, where the Turkish sultans used to reside as early as 1453. Neolithic artifacts, objects from the Bronze Age, depictions of Anatolian divinities, written records left by the first Assyrian and Hittite merchants, bear testimony to the ancient civilizations that followed one another in present day Turkey, from the first settlement of Çatal  Höyük to the end of the Ottoman Empire. Works on display include loans from other institutions as well, such as the Museum of Anatolian Civilizations in Ankara, the Archaeological Museum and the Museum of Turkish and Islamic Arts in Istanbul. These demonstrate the significant lapse of time that separates the early farming communities of the Konya plain in 7000 bC from the wealth of the Imperial Court and the Topkapi Palace’s golden walls in the early 20th-century.