Uşak Archaeological Museum

Uşak Archeology Museum: The museum work in our province was carried out by the Directorate of National Education until 1970. The building, which was first organized as the Archeology and Ethnography Museum, was used as the Archeology and administrative center after the opening of the Atatürk and Ethnography Museum on September 1, 1978. In the museum, which was reorganized with the arrival of the Karun Treasures at the beginning of 1996, stone works from the Chalcolithic period to the end of the Byzantine period, terracotta artifacts, glass artifacts, various jewelry made of gold and silver, bronze artifacts, bronze, gold coins and Karun Treasures are exhibited. .

Some of these are marble statues and statuettes from the Roman period, medallion and door-type tomb sites, terracotta pots from the Old Bronze, Greek, Roman and Byzantine periods, bowls and plates, fragrance pots made of glass, tear bottles.

In ancient times, the area in the west of Anatolia, surrounded by the regions of Karai in the south, Mysia in the north, Phrygia in the east, Ionia in the west, and Aiolia was called Lydia. According to the western historian Herodotus, the last dynasty of the Lydian empire, the Mermnads, ruled by three families, dominated the country for 141 years, making Lydia the most important politically and economically important country in the region. With palace intrigues, the Mermnads, the second dynasty, the third dynasty who conquered the Empire from the Heragites, begin with the king Gyges, continue with Ardys, sadyettes Alyettes, and end with Croesus (Karun). The powerful Lydian Empire, which started with Gyges in the first quarter of the 7th century BC, invented money and realized one of the most important discoveries in human history.

This event, which accelerated the economic development of the ancient world, also changed the course of history The important reason why Lydia was the richest country in the ancient world is the alluviums of the Paktalos (Sart Creek) stream, which originates from the Tmolos (Bozdağlar) Mountains and flows through the capital Sardes, which joins the hermos (Gediz) river. is gold inside. Gold obtained here determined the fate of Lydia. IV of the third family that conquered the country with some palace intrigues. and his last king, Croesus, took the throne in 560 BC after the death of his father Alyettes, and thanks to his incredible wealth, he has carried his reputation as rich as karun to the present day.

The Directorate of Usak Museum, which was opened on May 23, 1970, is the outcome of multi-layered cultural richness of our province, which has been fed continuously by different cultures for thousands of years by the Paleolithic Age, Bronze Ages, Phrygian, Lydian, Hellenistic, Roman and Eastern Rome. It has a collection of forty-two thousand works from these ancient times. After serving for about 48 years at the same building, construction of the new building for the Archaeological Museum was started in 2012 at the site of the railway station. Construction work was completed in 2016 and the exhibition and arrangement works were concluded in 2018. In the main exhibition hall of the museum there are showcases containing cutters, digging tools, shiver pieces, idols representing Bronze Age, rostrum shaped pitchers, stone axes from Paleolithic Ages, pots, plates, candle, figurine and glass samples representing Phrygian, Lydian, Hellenistic, Roman and Eastern Rome Periods. Just behind the chronological showcases, the cult of burial and beliefs of the ancient period are presented to the visitors. Next to these showcases on the first floor, in the statues section, there are statues belonging to Roman administrators, statesmen and athletes found within the borders of Uşak. In another section on the same floor, stone artifacts found in ancient cities such as Akmonia, Blaundos and Sebaste are exhibited within the borders of Uşak. Our museum also has a rich collection of coins because our province is located within the borders of the Lydian state where money was first minted and used in antiquity. Therefore, in the intermediate floor of the new museum building, there are only various recreations on the minting and use of money, and also showcases listed chronologically, as well as coins and coins from various periods and coin decays found within the borders of Uşak. The second floor of our museum is dedicated to The Treasures of Karun, known as the most magnificent artefacts of the Lydian - Persian Period, which were removed from the Lydian Mounds near the village of Güre, 25 km west of Uşak, on the Izmir Highway, and which were smuggled in 1965-66-68 and retrieved in 1993. In the first section of this floor consisting of two sections, the works found from Basmacı, Toptepe and Aktepe Mounds respectively, and in the back side are the winged seahorse brooch, which is the rarest of these groups and which was found in Germany and brought to Turkey by the initiatives of our ministry and exhibited in its home country. In the other part of this floor there are recreations of the Lydian period and the tumuli of Ikiztepe and Harta, portrayals of the professions of the Lydian period such as trade, weaver, ceramic and mold master. A section describing the daily life of the period is also found in this area. The last part in terms of exhibition in the museum is the ethnography section. In this area, the local ethnographic cultural accumulation of Uşak is described and various clothes, swords and weapons, materials used in daily life are exhibited. In addition to the educational area for children, the foyer area and conference room also have a library with specialized books in the new museum building.