Bayazhan was built in 1909 by Bayaz Ahmet Efendi and belongs to the group of two-storey, single-courtyard hans of Ottoman commercial architecture, rectangular in plan. It carries many features of the classical Ottoman han: regular cut stone under a hipped roof, shops on the ground floor opening to the street through wide arches, and on the upper floor a row of arched windows along the facade with a balcony behind ironwork railings.
The building was converted into a museum of the city's culture and history and opened in 2009. The displays cover Gaziantep's history, its sights, its natural surroundings, its economy, its crafts and its food, so it works as an introduction to the city before you walk out into it. Local crafts such as kutnu weaving, mother-of-pearl inlay and coppersmithing are shown being practised by figures in thematic sections. There is also a hall devoted to the city's twin towns, exhibition spaces, and models of its important buildings. The museum is on Atatürk Bulvarı in the Akyol quarter of Şahinbey.
When to go
- Climate
- Across Gaziantep as a whole, monthly mean temperatures run from 3.2 °C in January to 28.1 °C in July; the mean stays between 15 and 25 °C in May, June, September and October; rainfall is heaviest in January (103 mm) and lightest in August (5 mm). Long-term means for 1940-2025 from the Turkish State Meteorological Service (MGM).
