The Manisa Ottoman Museum stands in the Yunusemre district of Manisa and shows work on Ottoman themes. It was opened by the Yunusemre municipality as part of a project meant to add to the historical and cultural tourism of the city, under the Ministry of Culture and Tourism's Hundred Projects in the Hundredth Year programme. The museum was carried out under the eye of the mayor, Dr Mehmet Çerçi, with the archaeologist Barış Sağıroğlu and his team working on its making, and it opened in the second half of 2021.
The display runs from the rise of the Ottoman empire through to its fall. Much of it consists of figures: the Ottoman princes who grew up in the sancak of Manisa, well-known Turkish thinkers, and scenes of everyday Ottoman life. There are also statues and scenes of Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, of heroes of the national struggle from Manisa, and of Yunus Emre and Tapduk Emre.
The building lies inside the Yunus Emre Culture Park. It is one of four mansions put up by the municipality in the Ottoman manner, mostly meant to serve the public; this one was leased for forty-nine years for use as a museum.
The mansion has two floors, with six halls and two corridors inside. Its door is of teak and about three hundred years old, its face covered all over with flower motifs, geometric patterns and rumi work.
The hall that greets visitors at the entrance carries figures explaining how coffee culture spread and what coffee meant to the Ottomans. Another part of the entrance holds statues showing the old Turkish soldier from childhood through to adulthood.
The rooms are named, and the names tell you what is in them. One is given to Yunus Emre, the folk poet of the later thirteenth century, with statues of him and of his master Tapduk Emre, and in it a case that holds the headgear standing for twelve dervish orders. The section called the Has Oda, the privy chamber, is dedicated to the Ottoman sultans: statues of the seven who spent their years as princes in Manisa, and of the household troops. Displayed with them is a replica of Mehmed's sword from the Topkapı Palace in İstanbul, made to the same weight and carrying the same inscription and decoration as the original.
Upstairs the arrangement turns domestic. A corridor of traditional dress greets visitors at the top of the stairs, its figures dressed in original clothes chosen to match the culture and costume of each region, so that no two are alike. The remaining rooms are called Bey Odası and set out to show Ottoman daily life and the order of a house: a sitting room, a bedroom and a dining room are recreated as they would have been.
When to go
- Climate
- Across Manisa as a whole, monthly mean temperatures run from 6.7 °C in January to 28.1 °C in July; the mean stays between 15 and 25 °C in April, May, September and October; rainfall is heaviest in December (137 mm) and lightest in August (9 mm). Long-term means for 1930-2025 from the Turkish State Meteorological Service (MGM).
Visiting hours
- Hours
- Weekdays 09:00 - 17:00, weekends 10:00 - 18:00
