Amasya Museum: Mummies, the Teshub Figurine and a Many-Layered History

The Amasya Museum serves from a modern, flat-roofed building on Mustafa Kemal Paşa Street. Its collection runs from the Late Neolithic and Early Chalcolithic ages to the Ottoman period. One hall displays a bronze figurine of Teshub, the Hittite Storm God; another holds the apple mosaic from the floor of a Roman-period villa; and a separate section shows the mummies of Ilkhanid-period officials and their relatives, who lived about seven centuries ago. In the cases, bronze figurines, terracotta vessels, glassware, metal jewelry and weapons, thousands of coins, seals and manuscripts stand side by side, so that the city's settlement history of several thousand years can be followed under a single roof. The story of the museum draws interest as much for the works themselves as for the accounts of the records, which do not agree with one another: from the date of its founding to the number of mummies, from the discovery story of the Teshub figurine to the number of civilizations, different figures are in circulation on many points. In the account below the official institutional dates have been taken as the basis, and the places where accounts diverge are noted in the relevant sections.

From a Storeroom to a Modern Museum

The core of the museum is a museum storeroom established in 1925. In two rooms of the madrasa building belonging to the Bayezid II Complex, a small number of archaeological works and the mummies of the Islamic period were brought together; the storeroom was run by an honorary official until June 1958, when it acquired the status of a museum directorate. The statement "founded in 1958" found in some sources therefore refers to the founding of the directorate; the collection is older. The museum first served in various buildings, and when the works multiplied and new display spaces were needed, the collection was moved in 1962 to the Gökmedrese (Gökmedrese Mosque), one of the monumental buildings of the Seljuk period. On 22 March 1977 the museum moved to its present modern building, and after being rearranged it was opened to visitors on 14 June 1980.

These dates are plainly written in official institutional texts, but not every account follows the same line. A news report published in 2002 writes that the mummies came to the museum in 1972, spent the years between 1972 and 1978 in the Gökmedrese and moved to the renewed museum in 1978; another report, of 2009, says that the new museum entered service in 1976. In the account given in 2011 by the museum director Celal Özdemir, the year the Gökmedrese began to serve as a museum appears as 1966. Nor does the museum directorate consist of a single building. Together with the Hazeranlar Mansion and the Kral Kaya Tombs Site it operates as three units, while some official counts mention among the affiliated units only the Archaeology Museum and the Hazeranlar Mansion.

According to Hüsameddin, the Gökmedrese was built in 665 (1266-1267) by Emir Seyfeddin Torumtay, beylerbey (governor-general) and governor of Amasya; the author also mentions the double flight of stone steps in front of the mosque and the carved wooden door that stood firm "as if made of black marble." That door is today in the museum's section of wooden works. Within the same building, as will be described below, there is also an underground chamber in which dried human bodies were kept.

The Collection, Its Figures and Its Ages

It is reported that the museum today holds 23,476 works; this number covers archaeological and ethnographic works, coins, seals, manuscripts and the mummies. In the ministry's data the total as of 2015 is 23,958 works (5,524 archaeological, 17,187 ethnographic, 1,247 study pieces). In an interview the museum director Celal Özdemir spoke of about 6,000 archaeological, 4,500 ethnographic and some 12,500 coin works. A report of 2009, on the other hand, wrote that the museum held "more than 40,000" works; this figure matches none of the other counts. A total between twenty-three and twenty-four thousand can therefore be accepted as correct; the exact figure depends on which count and which date one looks at.

The number of civilizations also varies. Some texts speak of thirteen civilizations, some say twelve, some eleven. What they all have in common is the timeline: the sequence, beginning with the Late Neolithic and Early Chalcolithic, runs through the Bronze Age, the Hittite, Urartian, Phrygian, Scythian, Persian, Hellenistic, Roman, Byzantine (Eastern Roman), Seljuk, Ilkhanid and Ottoman periods. In the promotion by the Provincial Directorate of Culture and Tourism, Pontus has also been added to this list. Terracotta vessels, glassware, jewelry, weapons and figurines reflect each period's own sense of craft; the small works in metal are the group that shows most concretely how long the region stood at a crossroads of civilizations.

The Hellenistic and Pontic periods carry a separate importance for Amasya. In the city that was the center of the Kingdom of Pontus, a settlement of this age long went unexcavated. Şevket Dönmez and E. Emine Naza Dönmez, who began systematic excavation at Oluz Höyük in 2007, write in their reports published in Belleten that the best-known finds of this period consisted of coins and pottery that had reached the museum by various routes. The Hellenistic coins and ceramics in the museum therefore have a distinct value for understanding this age of the region.

The Coin Collection

Coins are the museum's largest group of works, and their ancient part is the one section of the collection to have been published internationally. Stanley Ireland of the University of Warwick, working in the museum with his wife over four summers, catalogued the Greek, Roman and Byzantine coins; the work was published in 2000 in the monograph series of the British Institute of Archaeology at Ankara. The book includes more than 4,500 coins ranging from the 5th century BC to the 11th century AD.

Since most of the coins are finds from the surrounding region, the richest groups belong to the mints of Amaseia, Amisos (Samsun), Sinope (Sinop) and Cappadocian Caesarea (Kayseri); beside these more than fifty other mints in Asia Minor are represented, and a few coins have come from places as far away as Alexandria in Egypt and Arles in Gaul. The coins bearing the name of Amaseia document that the city was a center striking its own money in antiquity. The city, capital of the Kingdom of Pontus, bore under Rome the title of "metropolis and first city" of its province; the silver and bronze coins of the Persian, Pontic and Roman periods are the most direct documents of this past.

One of the notable pieces of the Byzantine section is the Esençay Hoard. Found at Esençay in the district of Taşova, this group consists of gold coins called hyperpyra from the reigns of Alexios I Komnenos and John II Komnenos. According to the catalogue study published in 2020 by Hasan Buyruk of Ordu University, most of the gold coins in Turkish museums are acquired by purchase and their findspots are unknown, whereas the Esençay coins were recovered as a group find inside their original jar.

Coins of the Islamic period are numerous as well. The museum inventory registers 3,460 Ottoman coins. In her master's thesis prepared at Ondokuz Mayıs University in 2023, Zeynep Kemaloğlu catalogued 181 coins selected from among these Ottoman coins. They belong to 24 different sultans; the earliest dated goes back to the reign of Bayezid I (AH 792/AD 1389), the latest to that of Mehmed V Reşad (AH 1327/AD 1909).

The Building and Its Sections

The museum has three floors. In the basement are the storeroom and laboratory, on the lower floor a display and rest hall, and in the two halls on the upper floor the archaeological and ethnographic works. In the garden to the west of the building, stone works of the Hittite, Hellenistic, Roman, Byzantine, Ilkhanid, Seljuk and Ottoman periods are on open display; grave stelae, inscribed stones, column capitals and sarcophagi have been gathered from the ancient necropolises and buildings of Amaseia and its surroundings. The Apple Floor Mosaic from the Roman-period villa and the Ilkhanid mummies are on the first floor, while the Teshub statuette of the Hittite imperial age is shown in a special case in the archaeology section; these are counted among the museum's most closely watched works.

The Lower Hall

In this section are seen terracotta amphorae of the Roman and Byzantine periods recovered from a sunken ship near Bafra; the amphorae were added to the museum inventory in 1977. Four sarcophagi (one of hammered bronze of the Hellenistic period, three of terracotta), a high relief showing Dionysus with his son, and a headless statue of a priest are in the same hall.

The Upper Hall

The Bronze Age works are displayed in three cases. This group, consisting of pottery, daggers, stamp seals, axes and jugs, comes from the excavations at Mahmatlar and at Oymaağaç Village in Merzifon. In archaeological publications the name Mahmatlar is also associated with the metal objects found by villagers in 1949 and with the short excavation that H. Z. Koşay and M. Akok subsequently carried out. Two Hittite cases, and works of the Urartian, Phrygian, Scythian, Hellenistic and Roman periods, also stand on this floor. The ethnographic section includes women's ornaments, weapons, mother-of-pearl chests, ceramics, astronomical instruments, bath sets, clocks, lamps, healing bowls, incense burners, tea and coffee sets, manuscript Qurans and two sanjak banners brought from the Bayezid II Mosque. The jewelry made of glass, silver and gold is mostly rings and earrings, decorated with human and animal figures.

Teshub, the Storm God

A small bronze piece 21.5 centimeters high is counted among the most valuable works of the museum. The figurine represents Teshub, the Storm God, the chief deity of the Hittite pantheon, known as that of "the thousand gods," and appears in the archaeological literature under the names "the Amasya Figurine" or "the Hittite Storm God Teshub Statuette."

Its Discovery

The figurine was found in 1962 at Mesken Höyük in the village of Doğantepe, at a depth of 4 meters below the surface. Doğantepe is a mound that was settled from the Late Neolithic-Early Chalcolithic period to the end of the Ottoman era. The old name of the village is Zara, and it lies about 27 kilometers southwest of Amasya. The directors of the Oluz Höyük excavation, relying on the discovery of a Roman milestone at Doğantepe and on the position of Virasia, shown on the Tabula Peutingeriana on the road from Amaseia to Euchaita, suggest that the settlement can be matched with Virasia in the Roman period. A study dealing with the figurine is also known: Sedat Alp's article of 1963 examining the Hittite statuette found in the Zara district near Amasya and other Hittite works.

The story that the museum director Celal Özdemir told in 2021 is a different one: a citizen, pouring mud brick for his house, found the statuette by chance and gave it to someone else in exchange for a packet of cigarettes; the police later seized the work and handed it over to the museum. This account is oral and does not rest on a published excavation report; how it fits the information that it was found four meters below the surface has not been explained either.

What Kind of Work It Is

The piece is made of bronze by the casting technique and weighs 1,340 grams (some reports write "1.5 kg"). It has no arms or legs, nor anything below the skirt. On its head is a divine headdress with a conical, pointed cap; it has thick eyebrows and almond-shaped eyes, and a faint smile on its lips. The eye sockets are empty, but in its original state they are thought to have been filled with precious stones such as lapis lazuli. The expression of the face and the slender build of the body show the god as a young man. According to the museum label, the lower half of the body is thought to have been destroyed by civilizations after the Hittites in order to eliminate belief in this god; this is an interpretation and does not rest on a document.

Its Date and Meaning

The dating varies according to the sources. The museum label says the 15th century BC, other texts give the range 1400-1200 BC. The present village of Doğantepe is built over the ancient Hittite city of Hakmiş. This settlement, about 150 kilometers from the capital Boğazköy, was a cult center that came under Kaska raids in the Hittite imperial period and was used by Hittite kings as an advance fortress. The figurine may either have been brought to the cult place at Hakmiş for worship or have belonged to the temple here. According to Özdemir's interpretation, the arms were movable, and the statue may have been carried about by Hittite kings and queens at spring festivals; this is also a supposition. Statements such as "it has no equal in the world" and "the first and only known statuette of a god from the Hittite age" are claims of the museum and the local press; they could not be verified from independent sources.

The surroundings of Doğantepe have begun to be better understood through the Oluz Höyük excavations. Oluz Höyük is a settlement about 15 meters high and 45 decares in area, lying 3 kilometers south of the Amasya-Çorum highway in the Geldingen Plain, south of the Çekerek River. Dönmez and Naza Dönmez, looking at the pottery collected on the surface, describe it as the largest settlement of Amasya in the 2nd millennium BC. In their view the bronze statuette of a god and the seals found by chance at Doğantepe are signs of a strong Hittite presence in the region, and one of the reasons for beginning the excavation is to shed light on the historical geography of the area in the Hittite period. Oluz Höyük lies about 5 kilometers south of Doğantepe.

The Mummies

The first stop for most who come to the museum is the mummies. These bodies, displayed in glass coffins, are accepted as belonging to persons who served as ministers and emirs in Amasya during the Ilkhanid dominion in Anatolia, and to their relatives; among them are children. According to a report published in 2002, 90,000-100,000 people visited the museum each year mainly for the mummies. In 2018 the museum director Özdemir described this section as the part of the museum that draws the most interest, and singled out the fact that the collection consists of mummies of Muslims as what distinguishes it from the other mummy collections in Turkey.

Who These People Are

The mummies are considered to belong to persons who served as ministers and emirs during the Ilkhanid dominion in Anatolia in the 14th century; some sources say the Seljuk-Ilkhanid period, others the 13th century. They are traditionally called İşbuğa Nuyin, Şehzade Cumudar, the Minister of Anatolia, İzzettin Mehmet Pervane Bey, and his concubine (in some accounts his wife), daughter and son. This naming rests on the museum records and on tradition rather than on a firm identification; official accounts too say "they are believed to belong."

In her article published in 2015, Zehra Efe relies on the entries in the museum's ethnographic register. According to it, the first-numbered mummy belongs to İşbuğa Nuyin, the second to Şehzade Cumudar Bey, the Minister of Anatolia and son of Yeşmut, grandson of Hülâgu, the third to İzzettin Pervane Bey, the fourth to one of Pervane Bey's concubines, and the others to his daughter and son. İşbuğa Nuyin's death is written in the inventory entry as 1320; according to Efe, İşbuğa served as minister of Anatolia for more than twenty years and from 1316 was independent ruler of Anatolia. Cumudar Bey, for his part, was appointed minister of Anatolia in the reign of Ghazan Khan and died in 1297 while living in Amasya; this information is based on H. Hüsamettin Yaşar's Amasya Tarihi.

What Hüsameddin Saw in the Tomb

The source of today's identifications is the Amasya Tarihi of Hüseyin Hüsameddin Yasar. Hüsameddin places the "Cumudar Tomb" in front of the Burma Minare Mosque, in line with the minaret. Its door was built three years after the mosque, of a stone verging on black; the tomb is hexagonal in plan and fairly imposing. Inside are two small stone chambers, one below and one above: the lower serves as the tomb, the upper as a library.

In the lower chamber there are eight coffins, some placed one on top of another, all covered with green cloths. In the two coffins at the front lie two dead whose bodies are completely preserved and whom the people took to be "Arabs." The limbs of the others are incomplete, but the bones can be seen lying in their original arrangement. The identity of these dead was then unknown in Amasya; Mustafa Vâzıh Efendi had written that they were the slaves and concubines of Pervane Bey, and European researchers that they were mummified people surviving from the earliest ages. Hüsameddin regards both views as mere guesses: in 675 (1276-1277), the year Muineddin Süleyman Pervane was killed, the mosque had not yet been built, and it is not plausible that a large tomb would have been raised for slaves (Hüsameddin, Amasya Tarihi, vol. 1, p. 139).

His research in the records, however, yields a different result. According to Hüsameddin, the tomb belongs to Şehzade "Cümudar bin Yaşmut bin Hülâgu Han," grandson of Hülâgu Khan and minister of Anatolia, and beside him is buried the emir of Amasya "Abuşkay İşboğa Noyin." The coffins at the front, together with two more, had earlier stood in a crypt beneath the Fethiye Mosque and were moved here around 1271 (1854-1855); Hüsameddin says that people who knew of this were still alive in his own day. His guess for the bodies that came from Fethiye is that they are the corpses of Fetih Gazi, who converted the church into a mosque, and his son Mahmud Gazi, and of their wives or daughters. Elsewhere in the book he also writes that the tomb of Fetih Han Bey, governor of Amasya around 506 (1112-1113), was moved into the Cumudar Tomb (vol. 2, p. 328). Today's account of identity rests largely on this determination, but his guess about those who came from Fethiye did not pass into the museum's accounts, and those bodies were later attached to the family of Pervane Bey.

Cumudar and İşbuğa

According to the biography Hüsameddin gives (vol. 8, p. 533), Camudar Noyin was the son of Yeşmut, son of Hülâgu Khan. After his father's death he came to Anatolia in the reign of his uncle Abaqa Khan and settled in Amasya, whose air and water he liked best. He was the son-in-law of Kongurtay, the minister of Anatolia. In Rebiülevvel 681 (1282), when his other uncle Tekuder Khan became Ilkhanid ruler and embraced Islam, he dismissed Kongurtay and made Cumudar minister of the province of Amasya. Cumudar, who held this post for about six years, was dismissed in 687 (1288) when Arghun Khan appointed his brother Geikhatu minister of Anatolia.

In 693 (1294), when Geikhatu was deposed and killed, his cousin Baydu Khan, who succeeded him, made Cumudar minister of Anatolia. When Ghazan Khan embraced Islam in 694 (1295), Cumudar too openly declared himself a Muslim, and when Ghazan divided Anatolia in 695, Togacar Noyin became minister of western Anatolia and Cumudar of eastern Anatolia. The Seljuk Sultan Gıyaseddin Mesud II was for a time held in Harşena Castle under his supervision (vol. 2, pp. 370-371). Cumudar died suddenly in Cemaziyelahir 696 (March-April 1297) and was buried in the tomb he had built in his lifetime in front of the Burma Minare Mosque. Hüsameddin describes him as "an intelligent, prudent and fairly just Mongol prince"; he writes that among the Turks he was called "Camedar Sultan," and that his tomb appears in the records as the "Camedar Tomb." His sons were Acaytu Ahmed and Hügay Mehmed Noyin; that one of the old names of the Kılıççı neighborhood, on the qibla side of the Burmalı Minare, was "Cumudar Mahallesi" is another of his traces in the city.

Hüsameddin names İşbuğa Noyin as minister of Simre and as minister of Anatolia at Amasya; relying on the records, he says that Simre was İşboğa Noyin's estate and that the name of the present village of Yeşbeyi is a corruption of "İşboğa" (vol. 1, p. 200). He also writes that after 1297 İşbuğa carried on a measured administration in Amasya together with Halifetzade Celaleddin Muhammed Bey, trying to mend broken hearts. The death date of 1320 that Efe quotes from the inventory entry and the term as minister of more than twenty years fit this framework. For Cumudar, Hüsameddin says only that he "died suddenly"; he writes nothing about the manner of his death.

The Question of Pervane Bey

The identity of Pervane Bey is more complicated. Efe writes that, according to the museum records, there were two different İzzettin Mehmet Pervane Beys who served in Amasya. One is the son of Kutbettin Osman Bey, brother of the Seljuk deputy Muînüddin Süleyman Pervane (d. 1277), and was governor of Amasya before 1292; the other is the son of Muînüddin Süleyman Pervane and was appointed governor of Amasya by Ghazan Khan in 1296. To which of them the mummy belongs is not known with certainty, but the historical framework strengthens the second possibility. Muînüddin Süleyman Pervane was executed by Abaqa Khan, who entered Anatolia after the return of the Mamluk Sultan Baybars, who had come to Kayseri in 1276. His son Mehmet Pervane Bey, who served in Sinop in his father's name, declared independence, then came to terms with the Mongols and became governor of Amasya, but was seized and executed on the allegation that he was preparing a conspiracy against the Mongols. His concubine and children did not escape the massacre either. Efe notes that, proceeding from this information, the mummy is thought to belong to Mehmet Pervane Bey.

The same article relates the tradition that Pervane Bey was killed together with his concubine and children and that their bodies were mummified by the people of Amasya who loved them, but it places the event together with Abaqa Khan and 1297. These two pieces of information do not fit each other, since Abaqa Khan died in 1282. The exact date of the event and its perpetrator are therefore unclear in the sources.

Hüsameddin also distinguishes two Pervane Beys, but gives their names differently. İzzeddin Muhammed Pervane Bey, son of Kutbeddin Osman Bey, became governor of Amasya early in 691 (1292); since he himself was in Konya, Halifetzade Celaleddin Mehmed Bey acted as his deputy. The son of Muineddin Süleyman Pervane appears in Hüsameddin under the name "Azizeddin Muhammed Bey"; he was made governor of Amasya by Ghazan Khan in 695, and his province took in the basin of the Kızılırmak, Sinop included. This governor, who earned the hatred of the people with his heavy taxes, died suddenly in 697 (1297-1298) and was buried "inside the Burma Minare Mosque beside Cumudar Han" (vol. 2, pp. 369-372). In this account there is no execution. Nor does the story of his being killed together with a concubine and children appear in Hüsameddin. The idea that one of the mummies belongs to Pervane Bey can therefore be defended historically, while the identity of the concubine and the children remains at the level of tradition.

How Many Mummies There Are

The sources diverge here too. The official account, the encyclopedia entries and the statements of the museum director speak of eight mummies (four adults, four children); the report of 2002 also says "eight mummies exactly." The article by Ekrem Buğra Ekinci and the column of 2018 by Edib Ahmet Ceylan count six mummies, and a news agency report of 2019 likewise gives them as "six people, two of them children." Efe, after listing six inventory entries, notes that in addition to two child mummies there is a third child mummy, consisting of the chest and abdomen and of undeterminable sex. In 2011 Özdemir said that the eight mummies were displayed in six sarcophagi; this too suggests that the difference in number arises from fragmented remains being counted as a single mummy or as separate ones. The figure of eight coffins that Hüsameddin saw in the tomb is also striking, but there is no record showing that they correspond one to one with today's eight mummies. Today the most widespread account is eight.

Efe describes the condition of the mummies one by one. According to the measurements, the mummy of İşbuğa Nuyin is about 1.83 meters tall (in the article the unit is wrongly written as centimeters), its head has come away from the trunk, and a hole made with a piercing tool is seen in its left temple. The mummy of Cumudar Bey is about 1.73 meters and is one of the best-preserved specimens in the museum; the fallen jaw suggests that he may have been killed by hanging or strangling. The mummy of Pervane Bey is about 1.63 meters, that of his concubine 1.55 meters. The remains recorded as belonging to his daughter are only a piece of 65 centimeters, the boy's mummy beside it is 45 centimeters, and the mummy recorded as his son is 81 centimeters. The skin of the head and trunk of the 45-centimeter child is the specimen that has remained closest to its natural state, and it is clear that its eyes were open at the moment of death.

Where They Were Brought From

The first resting place of the mummies is the tomb adjoining the Burmalı Minare Mosque. According to its inscription of 1242, the mosque was built by two brothers, Said Ferruh and Haznedar Yusuf; Hüsameddin's attribution of the mosque to Pervane Bey in his biography of Cumudar contradicts this inscription. The octagonal Cumudar Tomb on the left of the entrance is known by this name because the mummy belonging to Şehzade Cumudar was kept there until it was placed in the museum, but it belongs originally to Ferruh Bey and his son; Hüsameddin, by contrast, describes the tomb as hexagonal and regards it as the tomb Cumudar built for himself. According to Efe, the mummies of İşbuğa Nuyin and Cumudar were brought from the tomb adjoining the Burmalı Minare Mosque known as the "Tomb of the Martyrs," and the others from the Fethiye Mosque, which was originally a church; among the people these persons are known as the "Martyrs." It is reported that Evliya Çelebi also spoke of these mummies.

According to the museum director Özdemir's account of 2011, the mummies were first found by chance in 1855 in the basement of the Fethiye Mosque and taken to the Burmalı Minare Mosque, where they were displayed until 1928. This date agrees with Hüsameddin's record of a transfer from the Fethiye crypt around 1271 (1854-1855); according to Hüsameddin, however, those who came from Fethiye are only part of the coffins in the tomb, Cumudar and İşboğa already lying in the tomb at the Burma Minare. Özdemir's statement in 2018 that the mummies were kept in the tomb section of the Burmalı Minare Mosque until 1855 contradicts his own account of 2011. The phrase "beneath the Burmalı Minare" is therefore incomplete: the correct place is the adjoining tomb and the crypt of the Fethiye Mosque.

According to Efe, the mummies were taken out of their tombs in 1928 and transferred to the museum directorate; Özdemir too gives this year as the date when, with the opening of the madrasa of the Bayezid II Mosque as a museum, the mummies began to be displayed in one of the madrasa's rooms. While on display in the lecture-hall iwan of the Bayezid II Madrasa on the bank of the Yeşilırmak, they were submerged and seriously damaged in the flood of 1952. Efe writes that in photographs taken in 1952 the concubine's head is joined to the body and intact, whereas today it has come away; the damage, then, continued afterward. The mummies were then moved to the Gökmedrese Mosque, and in 1980 to the new museum building; after being shown in its basement for a few years they were placed in the Tomb of Sultan Mesud I in the garden. A report of 2009 writes that the tomb was arranged as a mummy hall together with the new museum, which entered service in 1976. The difference between the record of 1928 and the account saying that the mummies were first placed in the museum in 1925 is also a contradiction in the sources.

Cause of Death and the Mummification Technique

The mummies were mummified without removal of the internal organs. The official account presents them as the first Turkish and Muslim mummies mummified without removing the internal organs. According to what Efe relates, the technique rests on carrying out drying and embalming together without removing the internal organs. According to Özdemir, one difference from the Egyptian mummies is also that the bodies were not wrapped in linen and were left without being placed in any shroud-like covering. Categorical statements of the "only one in the world" kind could not be verified. Ekinci relates the existence of other uncorrupted bodies from the Seljuk period (Kayseri, Kemah, Kastamonu, Harput, Niksar, Konya); Efe also writes that in the museums and tombs of Turkey there are in total 41 human and 2 animal mummies. Mummification therefore cannot be regarded as a practice peculiar to Amasya. According to the mummy researcher Muzaffer Doğanbaş, there are about forty mummies in the country, found mostly in the museums of Amasya, Istanbul Archaeology, Topkapı Palace, Niğde, Aksaray and Karaman, and the earliest mummies in Anatolia belong to the Danishmendids.

Doğanbaş also touches on the background of mummification in Turkish culture. According to him, there is a mummification tradition that came from Central Asia; al-Biruni in the 12th century used the word "mummy" in the sense of a corpse treated with medicines so as not to decay; in the Ottoman world the term "tahnit" is used for this process; the Konya physician Hacı Paşa wrote a book describing mummification methods; and up to the time of Süleyman the Magnificent the sultans, except Selim I (Selim the Grim), were embalmed. In another interview, given in 2009, he frames the details somewhat differently: he says that Hacı Paşa's work of 1380 mentions some forty substances used in mummification, among them everyday ones such as salt and onion, and that in the Ottoman state there were salaried embalming officials who took part in embalming sultans and princes; as the sultans who were not mummified he names Osman Gazi, Orhan Gazi, Selim I and Bayezid II. These two accounts do not agree on the sultans; both are the researcher's own accounts and are given without a source.

In 2002 the National Geographic Channel came to Amasya for its 13-part documentary "The Mummy Road Show." The team, which included Ronald G. Beckett and Gerald Conlogue of Quinnipiac University and the producer Larry Engel, X-rayed each mummy, carried out endoscopies and took DNA samples; their path to Amasya came through Doğanbaş's book Mumyalama Sanatı ve Anadolu Mumyaları, published in Amasya in 2001. In the first results the mummies were attributed to Cumudar Şehzade Bey (aged 56), İşbuğa Nuyin (30), İzzettin Pervane Bey (50), his wife, and his daughter of 1.5 years and son of 3.5 years. Respiratory diseases resembling pneumonia were found in the children, a disease that stops bone growth in one child, and arthritis reflecting hard living conditions in the concubine. It was also recorded that all of them had their eyes and mouths open and, unlike Egyptian mummies, had their internal organs; the mummification chemicals, the manners of death and the kinship ties were to be investigated later in the laboratory.

In Özdemir's statements the year of the examination is given as 2003, while another interview says 2002. The endoscopy showed that the brain and intestines were absent and that most of the internal organs were in place. According to Özdemir, the children died of disease, while İşbuğa and Cumudar were killed by strangling. That they were killed by the Mongols is a guess. The ages given in the documentary's first results do not fully agree with the historical records either; assigning an age of 30 to İşbuğa, who is written to have served as minister for more than twenty years, does not fit that information.

Other Preserved Bodies in Amasya

According to Hüsameddin, there are two places known as the "Tomb of the Martyrs": one is the Cumudar Tomb at the Burma Minare, the other a chamber inside the Torumtay Mosque, that is, the Gökmedrese. This deep stone room, reached by some eight stone steps, has no window for light or air apart from its east-facing door. Inside stand two coffins, one to the south and one to the north; in the closed coffins are many human heads, arms, legs and other limbs, the flesh appearing to have dried on the bones. As there is no inscription their identities are unknown; Hüsameddin guesses that Torumtay's son, his grandson and emirs descended from him lie here (vol. 1, p. 142).

Another example is the Halkalı Dede Tomb in the Çeribaşı neighborhood. Here is buried Saru Hatun, daughter of Şadi Bey, of the line of Şadgeldi Paşa, emir of Amasya. Hüsameddin writes that in the crypt beneath the tomb a body could be seen in an open coffin, lying uncorrupted in its slightly yellowed shroud. The tomb takes its name from the iron rings on the stones that close the mouth of the crypt (vol. 1, p. 140).

Where They Are Displayed Today

The mummies were for a long time displayed in the tomb of the Seljuk Sultan Mesud I in the museum garden; some of the older accounts still write this. Hüsameddin describes this tomb as a building west of the Yukarı Pazar, south of the cemetery called "Narlı Bahçe," of stone on every side, solid, with an ornamented west-facing front and a plan close to a rectangle. On the columns of the front are carved an intricate Kufic inscription and the name of Mesud I; Hüsameddin considers it certain that the sultan lies here and attributes the blackening of the front to the tomb's having burned many times (vol. 1, p. 141). On 3 May 2011 the mummies were moved from this tomb to a special section fitted with climate-control equipment and cameras; it was announced that marble cenotaphs of the Ottoman period would henceforth be displayed in the tomb.

The current account states that the mummies are shown inside the museum, in a special section called the Mummies Hall, in special glass coffins. Some texts place this section on the first floor, while the report of the 2011 move gives the second floor; the difference may come from the way the floors are counted. The mummies are protected in a humidity- and temperature-controlled environment, with air conditioning and climate-control equipment, and undergo periodic maintenance by ministry officials. It would be wise to ask about the current arrangement before a visit.

Since 2019 a drawing has hung at the head of each mummy in the hall, showing how that person may have looked in life. According to the then governor Osman Varol, speaking in November 2019, the artists first made a model based on the shape of the skull and body, drew the facial expressions and build accordingly, and then completed the figures, on the basis of period documents, with the kind of clothing a governor or a commander would have worn. Varol added that the drawings make no claim to an exact likeness and are meant only to give visitors an idea. These pictures bring no new information about the identity of the mummies; they are a choice of display that gives visual form to the traditional attributions.

Ahmet Yüce, who was museum director in 2002, stressed the importance of the documentary for the promotion of Turkey and said that Amasya was the museum with the most mummies in world archaeology. This is a director's statement. In 2018 Özdemir likewise described Amasya as "the only museum in Turkey with Islamic mummies," saying that most of the mummies in other museums belonged to Christians. The total of 41 mummies that Efe gives for Turkey makes Amasya an important collection within the country, but it does not confirm the worldwide claim; the Muslim bodies in the tombs of Anatolia also weaken the word "only." The same claim still circulates in the local press: a report published in the summer of 2026 presented the collection as the only Turkish and Muslim mummies in the world preserved with their internal organs and displayed openly, without linen wrappings, and wrote that tour groups from provinces such as Istanbul, Ankara and Ordu put the museum at the top of their programs. Leaving the organs in place and displaying the bodies unwrapped do make the collection genuinely rare; the word "only," however, cannot be counted a verified quality in the face of the examples above.

Other Notable Works

The Apple Mosaic

The mosaic, uncovered in 2013 in a rescue excavation at the Küpderesi locality of Yavru Village, belongs, as understood from the architectural fabric, to a structure built in the Roman period as a rural villa (villa rustika). After years of use the building was converted into a chapel, that is, a church, in the Eastern Roman period, from the end of the 4th century AD. On the floor of about 20 square meters are seen an apple tree, an apple depiction, a partridge and geometric figures. The mosaic is found important because it shows that the Amasya Misket apple was famous about 1,700 years ago too. Some sources give the age of the mosaic as 1,800 years; the claim "the only mosaic in the world depicting an apple tree" is a local statement.

The Aktarla Sarcophagus

The Roman-period sarcophagus of cream-colored limestone, found in the Aktarla neighborhood of Yuvacık Village, consists of a trough and a lid. One face of the trough was left plain, while the other three faces are in relief with mythological figures and scenes. The lid is gabled, with a triangular pediment and corner acroteria; on one of the narrow faces there is a relief of two birds eating fruit from a kantharos. From the traces, the lid and body were joined to each other with a bronze rivet. Immediately below the lid is a five-line Greek inscription painted in red. According to the inscription, may those who approach with respect receive goodness from God, and for those who try to seize the tomb may the earth be impassable and the seas uncrossable, and may they not see the good of their children, especially of their wife. In order to protect the tomb from robbers, the eyes of the Gorgon figure within the frame formed by the pilasters, beneath the inscriptions on the two narrow faces, are also painted red.

Window Shutters with the Kayı Mark

The wooden window shutters brought to the museum in 2000 from the Bayezid II Mosque of 1486 bear the tamga of the Kayı tribe. Each shutter measures 208 x 67 centimeters and is 6.5 centimeters thick; the shutters consist of three panels each, the upper panels horizontal rectangles, the lower panels square, and the middle panels, in which the tamga lies, upright rectangles. The tamga is worked in the form "I Y I" and in a mirrored (müsenna) arrangement, and covers a total area of 29.5 centimeters; the I-shaped marks at the sides are 8 centimeters high and 3 centimeters thick in the shaft, while the Y in the middle is 13 centimeters high and 13 centimeters wide at its mouth. It is written that the only Kayı tamga that can be identified within the borders of Amasya province is on these shutters, and that it is also the only example in the Ottoman geography. On the upper panels is written the Persian couplet "Kâ'betü'l-uşşâk bâşed în mekâm / Her ki nâkıs âmed încâ şod temâm," which belongs to the Molla Mosque and is also found in the Calligraphy Room of the Konya Mevlâna Museum. Its meaning is "This place is the Kaaba of lovers; whoever comes here lacking is made whole."

The Sundial and Wooden Works

The marble sundial of the Ottoman period is in the shape of a pine cone, with three bases and a conical body, and is regarded as a unique work. On the body are reliefs showing eleven hourly divisions, five of which have hollows indicating half hours. The wooden section includes works such as the original ebony door of the Gökmedrese dating from 1266-1267, the kündekâri door of the Mehmet Paşa Mosque of 1485, and a Byzantine door leaf, decorated with vine branches and bunches of grapes, belonging to a monastery in Gümüşhacıköy. On the central post of the Gökmedrese door is an inscription giving the name of its maker. Hüsameddin, and before him İsmail Hakkı Uzunçarşılı, read this name as "Ebu's-Silm en-Neccâr," while the editors of the new edition of the Amasya Tarihi, examining the door in the museum closely, state that the phrase can be read as "amel-i Ebû Müslim en-Neccâr," that is, "the work of Ebû Müslim the carpenter" (vol. 1, p. 128).

Banners

The museum holds the Gümüş (Gümüşhacıköy) banner, the Amasya Province banner and the Shkodër banner of the Amasya Reserve Battalion. The Province banner was brought to the museum in 1987 from the Bayezid II Mosque.

From Earlier Ages

According to Özdemir, in the work at Doğantepe in 2006 "the oldest baby in Anatolia, 7,000 years old" and a family cemetery were found, and these finds are displayed in a single case; the dating is 6500 BC. These statements rest on the official's interview and could not be verified from a published excavation report. Two sarcophagi of the Byzantine period are displayed in the museum garden; the surfaces of the limestone sarcophagi are decorated with bunches of grapes, vine branches, palmettes and bird motifs. The collection also registers a bronze eye-axe of the Middle Bronze Age added in 1976.

The Hazeranlar Mansion and Affiliated Units

The Hazeranlar Mansion, attached to the museum directorate, stands on Hazeranlar Street in Hatuniye. The mansion was built in 1865 by Hasan Talat Efendi, the treasurer of Amasya, and took its name from Hazeran Hanım, who lived here for a long time. A building that is among the examples of traditional Ottoman civil architecture, with its four-iwan, central-hall plan, it is in two parts, a harem and a selamlık, and is of the inward-looking type with an inner courtyard. Its southern section was built, two stories above a basement, on the ancient-period city walls of Amasya Castle on the bank of the Yeşilırmak, in the hımış technique, with mud-brick infill between the timber framing.

The mansion was expropriated in 1977, and its restoration, begun in 1979, was completed in 1984. When it was opened to visitors as a house museum, family life and social activities in the 19th-century mansions of Amasya were brought to life with mannequins and 355 ethnographic works. The eleven-room building contains sitting and bed rooms; iwans furnished for conversation and entertainment in the summer months; a bride's room where local bindallı (bridal) garments and women's street clothes are displayed; the head room fitted out with traditional carpets and kilims; a trousseau room; everyday kitchen utensils; clay, clogs and embroidered towels reflecting bath culture; and the ornaments of Ottoman women. Today the upper floors of the mansion are used as a house museum and the basement as a painting exhibition hall and art gallery.

The Kral Kaya Tombs Site is also mentioned as one of the units attached to the museum. The Burmalı Minare Mosque (1242) stands behind the Coppersmiths' Bazaar. There are other museums in the city as well: the Princes' Museum, the Saraydüzü Barracks Building and National Struggle Museum, the Alparslan Municipality Museum, the Sabuncuoğlu Museum of the History of Medicine and Surgery, and the Miniature Amasya Museum.

Visitor Information

The museum is at Üçler Neighborhood, Mustafa Kemal Paşa Street No: 91, and is within walking distance from every part of the city. The Museum Card is valid. Visitors are allowed to take photographs and video with amateur cameras. Touring the halls and the garden takes about an hour and a half; moving on to the mummy section after following the collection through the ages also suits the order of the sections.

Hours and fees change over time. The General Directorate of Cultural Heritage and Museums announced the closing time of the Amasya Museum for the tourism season of 1 May-1 October 2026 as 19:00; it is seen that in earlier years too an extension was made in the summer season, and winter hours are earlier. Statements in older writings such as "open every day except Monday" could not be verified. For current hours and fees it is most reliable to consult the museum directorate.

Visitor numbers also change with time. In 2002 it was written that 90,000-100,000 people toured the museum a year. According to a report of 2012, 75,980 people came in the previous year; in 2018 the director spoke of 68,000 visitors for 2017. Governor Varol, for his part, announced as the last month of 2019 began that about 100,000 people had toured the museum that year.

Chronology

15th century BC-1200 BC: The dating range given in the sources for the Teshub figurine.

1242: Date of construction of the Burmalı Minare Mosque (according to its inscription).

1266-1267: Construction of the Gökmedrese by Emir Seyfeddin Torumtay.

1282: Cumudar is made minister of the province of Amasya by Tekuder Khan (Hüsameddin).

1294: Cumudar is appointed minister of Anatolia by Baydu Khan (Hüsameddin).

1297: Death of Cumudar in Amasya and his burial in his tomb in front of the Burma Minare.

1297-1298: Death of Pervane Bey, governor of Amasya and son of Muineddin Süleyman Pervane, and his burial beside Cumudar (Hüsameddin).

1320: Death of İşbuğa Nuyin according to the museum inventory (Efe).

1486: Date of the Bayezid II Mosque; the Kayı-marked window shutters in the museum belong to this mosque.

1854-1855: The bodies found in the crypt beneath the Fethiye Mosque are moved to the tomb at the Burma Minare (around 1271 according to Hüsameddin, 1855 according to the museum directorate).

1865: Construction of the Hazeranlar Mansion.

1925: Founding of the museum storeroom in the madrasa of the Bayezid II Complex.

1928: Transfer of the mummies from their tombs to the museum directorate (Efe).

1949: Metal finds discovered by villagers at Mahmatlar, followed by the short excavation of Koşay and Akok (Belleten).

1952: Damage to the mummies in the Yeşilırmak flood (Efe).

1958: The storeroom becomes a museum directorate.

1962: Transfer of the collection to the Gökmedrese (1966 in one account); discovery of the Teshub figurine at Doğantepe.

22 March 1977: Move to the new modern building.

14 June 1980: Opening of the new building to visitors.

1984: Completion of the restoration of the Hazeranlar Mansion and its opening as a house museum.

2000: The Kayı-marked window shutters are brought to the museum from the Bayezid II Mosque; publication of Stanley Ireland's catalogue of the Greek, Roman and Byzantine coins in the museum.

2001: Publication of Muzaffer Doğanbaş's book Mumyalama Sanatı ve Anadolu Mumyaları.

2002-2003: Examination of the mummies by the National Geographic team (the year differs in the sources).

2007: Systematic excavation begins at Oluz Höyük.

3 May 2011: The mummies are moved from the Tomb of Sultan Mesud I to the climate-controlled section in the museum building.

2013: The Apple Mosaic is uncovered in a rescue excavation.

2019: Drawings reconstructing the appearance of the mummies in life are placed in the hall.

2020: Publication of Hasan Buyruk's book on the gold coins of the Esençay Hoard.

2023: Zeynep Kemaloğlu's master's thesis on the Ottoman coins in the museum.

Sources

Primary sources

• Hüseyin Hüsâmeddîn Yasar, Amasya Tarihi, vols. 1-4 (Amasya Municipality e-book: pp. 128, 139-142, 200, 328, 369-372; especially the entries "Cumûdâr Türbesi," "Şehîdler Türbesi" and "Sultân Mes'ûd Türbesi" and the section on Cumudar and the Pervane Beys) and vols. 6-8 (e-book p. 533, entry "Camudâr Noyin"); amasya.bel.tr/uploads/e-kitap. amasya.bel.tr
• Hasan Buyruk, Amasya Müzesi Esençay Definesi: I. Aleksius ve II. Jhon Komnenos Dönemi Altın Sikkeleri, Ankara: Akademisyen Kitabevi, 2020. amasya.bel.tr

Academic studies

• Zehra Efe, "Türkiye Müze ve Türbelerindeki Mumyaların Tarihi ve Bugünkü Durumları", Süleyman Demirel Üniversitesi Fen-Edebiyat Fakültesi Sosyal Bilimler Dergisi, 34, 2015, pp. 279-292.
• Şevket Dönmez and E. Emine Naza Dönmez, "Amasya-Oluz Höyük Kazısı 2007 Dönemi Çalışmaları: İlk Sonuçlar", Belleten, 73/267, 2009 (with the citations given in the Belleten bibliography for the works of Sedat Alp, "Amasya Civarında Zara Bucağında Bulunan Hitit Heykeli ile Diğer Hitit Eserleri", Anadolu/Anatolia VI, 1963, and H. Z. Koşay-M. Akok, "Amasya Mahmatlar Köyü Definesi", Belleten XIV/31, 1950).
• Zeynep Kemaloğlu, Amasya Müzesi'nde Bulunan Osmanlı Dönemi Sikkeleri, master's thesis, Ondokuz Mayıs University, 2023 (abstract).

Official sources

• Republic of Türkiye Ministry of Culture and Tourism, Kültür Portalı, "Amasya Müzesi" and "Burmalı Minare Camii ve Cumudar Türbesi" (kulturportali.gov.tr).
• Republic of Türkiye Amasya Governorship, "Amasya Müzesi" (amasya.gov.tr).
• Amasya Provincial Directorate of Culture and Tourism, "Amasya Müzesi" and "Amasya Museum" (amasya.ktb.gov.tr).
• General Directorate of Cultural Heritage and Museums, "Amasya Müze Müdürlüğü" (Archaeology Museum and Hazeranlar Mansion sections) and "2026 Turizm Sezonunda Ziyaret Saatleri" (kvmgm.ktb.gov.tr).

Books

• Stanley Ireland, Greek, Roman and Byzantine Coins in the Museum at Amasya (Ancient Amaseia), Turkey, London: British Institute of Archaeology at Ankara (Monograph 27), 2000 (as described in the publisher's summary and in Andrew Meadows's review in Bibliotheca Orientalis 58, 2001; also the University of Warwick research page of Dr Stanley Ireland).

Other sources

• Anadolu Ajansı, "Amasya'daki mumyalar taşındı", Hürriyet, 3 May 2011; Anadolu Ajansı (Enes Sansar), "Amasya Müzesi'nin Müslüman mumyaları", Arkeolojik Haber; Anadolu Ajansı (Enes Sansar), "Amasya Müzesi'ndeki mumyalara ziyaretçi ilgisi", 4 September 2018. hurriyet.com.tr
• DHA (Serap Şerife Kara), "Amasya Müzesi'ndeki mumyalara özel muhafaza", 6 May 2021; DHA, "59 yıl önce Amasya'da tesadüfen bulundu...", Hürriyet, 23 April 2021.
• Hürriyet, "Amasya'nın mumyası elmasını geçecek", 15 June 2002; Timeturk, "İşte mumyalanmış ilk müslüman Türkler", 10 August 2009; Anadolu Agency (Enes Sansar), "Amasya'daki mumyaların gerçek hayattaki görünümleri resmedildi", 30 November 2019, https://www.aa.com.tr/tr/kultur-sanat/amasyadaki-mumyalarin-gercek-hayattaki-gorunumleri-resmedildi/1659781; Objektif Amasya (Fatma Betül Yılmaz), "Dünyanın En Nadir Mumya Örnekleri Amasya'da Sergileniyor", 4 July 2026, https://www.objektifamasya.com/haber/28279499/dunyanin-en-nadir-mumya-ornekleri-amasyada-sergileniyor; Sabah, "Anadolu'nun esrarengiz mumyaları", 8 March 2012; İHA, "Amasya: Öldürülen Vali ve Ailesinin Mumyaları", haberler.com, 5 September 2006.
• Edib Ahmet Ceylan, "Amasya Müzesindeki Paha Biçilmez Eserler", Duyuru Gazetesi, 29 March 2018; Ekrem Buğra Ekinci, "Türkler ve Mumyacılık".

Online sources

• https://dergipark.org.tr/en/download/article-file/2891939
• https://kvmgm.ktb.gov.tr/TR-44059/amasya-muze-mudurlugu.html
• https://www.aa.com.tr/tr/kultur-sanat/amasyadaki-mumyalarin-gercek-hayattaki-gorunumleri-resmedildi/1659781