Ankara

Ankara is the capital of the modern Turkish Republic. In the course of ten millennia of habitation, the denizens of the area have reflected in their art - from the vigorous paintings of Catalhoyuk to the confident lines of Seljuk architecture, to more recently, the impressive modern form of Ataturk's Mausoleum - the dramatic contours of the surrounding landscape. The seat of Turkey's government in the strategic heart of central Anatolia, Ankara is the city selected by Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, the republic's founder, to house the capital of the newly politically defined country. Though thoroughly modern in appearance Ankara's history and that of the surrounding area dates back to the Bronze Age and the Hatti civilization. In the second millennium B.C. the Hittites followed as lords of the land and were succeeded in turn by the Phrygians, Lydians and Persians. In the third century B.C., the Galatians, a Celtic race, made Ankara their capital. It was then known as Ancyra, meaning anchor.

Very few places in the world could provide you with a chronology of the sweeping progress of mankind. One of them is the Museum of Anatolian Civilization in Ankara. This ex-Museum of the year, arranged as a chronological spiral, takes you back 900 miles of years. The Museum of Anatolian Civilizations boasts with its priceless collection of Paleolithic, Neolithic, Hatti, Hittite, Phrygian, Urartian and Roman artefacts. Anatolian Museum, one of the most remarkable museums in the world, considered to be. The building is housed in two renovated structures of the Ottoman era: one is a caravanserai 600 years old, the Kurşunlu caravanserai, while the second is the Mahmut Paşa Bedesten (a covered bazaar and strong structure designed to protect precious trade commodities). The best way to be astonished is to visit the museum with the glories and richnesses of the long history of Anatolia that goes back to the 7th millennium BC.