At the initiative of the Ministry of Education, work began in 1968 on a building for an enclosed museum beside the Ahlat Seljuk cemetery, which is in the nature of an open-air museum, on the part of the site lying along the road south of the cemetery.
The museum opened in 1971 with two halls. The first held Turkish textiles — sashes, cloths and towels — together with examples of women's clothing such as the three-panelled dress, the bindallı gown, clogs and stockings. The second showed manuscript Qur'ans and panels with gold ornament, metal kitchenware and other objects of daily life.
When the building proved too small, work began in 2011 on a new museum building on a different site. It was opened at a ceremony on 13 June 2018, attended by the minister of culture and tourism, Numan Kurtulmuş. The works are displayed today in four areas: archaeology, urban memory, the foyer and the garden.
When to go
- Climate
- Across Bitlis as a whole, monthly mean temperatures run from -4.2 °C in January to 23.1 °C in August; the mean stays between 15 and 25 °C in June, July, August and September; rainfall is heaviest in March (196 mm) and lightest in August (7 mm). Long-term means for 2011-2025 from the Turkish State Meteorological Service (MGM).
Visiting hours
- Hours
- 08:00 - 17:00
