Two things set this museum apart, and the municipality names both: the building is a historic one in the characteristic architectural style of its period, and every object in it came in as a donation rather than a purchase. It was created out of the municipality's own resources.
The story it tells runs in order — the archaeology of Bozüyük, then its development through the Seljuk and Ottoman periods, and above all its part in the national struggle and since. This is the ground on which the İnönü battles were fought, one of the turning points of the War of Independence, and which Atatürk described as where the nation's ill fortune was defeated.
Two provisions make the visit easier than it would otherwise be. A tracked wheelchair is available so that visitors with disabilities can reach the museum, and a QR code system gives the English translations of the information panels for visitors from abroad.
The museum has been recognised twice by the Union of Historical Towns, with a museum award and a 2017 award for projects and works protecting historical and cultural heritage. It is a member of the European Museum Academy and represented the town at the academy's meeting in Denmark in 2018.
The collecting was done on the road. Work began in 2015, and in the course of it 44 villages and the district centre were visited, 15,000 kilometres covered, and 750 interviews held at forty different points outside the province to obtain information and documents. Those journeys and the donors' support brought together 1,700 pieces in all — photographs, historical documents and objects of everyday life — and the museum opened on 29 March 2017. Progress was reported to the public periodically from the moment the restoration began.
Alongside the objects there is a spoken record. During the setting up, an oral history project was carried out with the people of Bozüyük which produced a video archive of about a thousand minutes, and the municipality says that material made the museum work easier. Since it opened, the museum has been treated as a model by other provinces and districts starting museums of their own, and institutions in the region beginning such work have come to examine it and take advice.
When to go
- Climate
- Across Bilecik as a whole, monthly mean temperatures run from 2.6 °C in January to 22.2 °C in August; the mean stays between 15 and 25 °C in May, June, July, August and September; rainfall is heaviest in December (55 mm) and lightest in August (13 mm). Long-term means for 1939-2025 from the Turkish State Meteorological Service (MGM).
