Guide
The Ethnography Museum of Bitlis opened in 2005 in the building that used to be the governor's residence, a registered cultural property built in Ahlat stone in keeping with the local fabric. It has a half-basement, a ground floor and one upper floor, and the collection is shown in two quite different settings.
The upper floor holds recent material, mostly of the late Ottoman and republican periods: textiles, embroidery, ornaments and jewellery, copperwork, coins and other objects that carry the ethnographic character of the region. The censers of the late Ottoman period are among the more important groups here, showing what the copper craft of that time could do, and the rosewater sprinklers displayed beside them are notable for their range of technique and form. The garden display is architectural: carved stones from local buildings, hand mills and gravestones. The ornament on the basalt architectural pieces tells visitors a good deal about the culture and the building practice of the period, and about the way of life, and the social, religious, technical and scholarly character of the time. The museum is on Cumhuriyet Caddesi in central Bitlis.
