Beypazarı Belediyesi Tarih ve Kültür Müzesi

About Beypazarı Belediyesi Tarih ve Kültür Müzesi

The Beypazarı History and Culture Museum, long known locally as the Beypazarı Tarih ve Kültür Evi (History and Culture House), is an ethnographic museum set in a three-storey Ottoman mansion in the old town. The house was built in 1850 and donated by Hafız Mehmet Nurettin Karaoğuz to the Ankara Provincial Special Administration. It became a museum in 1997 and was transferred to Beypazarı Municipality in 2014. The building itself is a large part of the visit. Its ground floor has stone walls and once served as a stable and courtyard, while the upper floors are timber-framed and finished inside and out with local lime plaster. Typical of a large patriarchal household, every room has built-in bedding cupboards (yüklük), a small washing cubicle (gusülhane) and divans, and the house contains bedrooms, guest rooms, a children's room, a prayer room, a bride's room, and a kitchen and washroom on each floor. The displays reflect the culture of Beypazarı and its surroundings in the Ottoman and Republican periods, with household objects, precious metalwork, antiques and historical documents. Particular attention is given to traditional ways of life and to the town's seven-day wedding customs. Roman and Byzantine archaeological pieces are shown in the garden. Most of the objects were donated by local institutions and residents. The museum also has an annex (Ek Bina) at Yenice Sokak No:5 devoted to traditional Beypazarı life. Prepared by the municipality and the Beypazarı solidarity association in Istanbul under Prof. Dr. Nermin Uysal, it uses mannequins, authentic costumes and objects in the rooms, hall and courtyard of a mansion to recreate scenes from local customs around childbirth, circumcision, funerals, weddings and mevlid recitations as women lived them around 1910. The municipality's BeyMobil visitor guide lists the museum and its annex as open daily from 09:00 to 18:00. It stands close to the Turkish Bath Museum in the Cumhuriyet quarter, so the two are easy to combine.