The role of the site museums on the protection of the archaeological heritage

ABSTRACT The aim of this thesis, which is the first research about site museums in our country, is to establish the necessity of site museums on the protection of the archaeological heritage and to make proposals about the definition, place, location and building, departments, management and staff, collection and exhibition, security, protection of objects for the existing and forthcoming site museums in our country. In this thesis, foreign and Turkish books, thesis, periodicals were searched from libraries and by internet; correspondence were made with the connected institutions of site museums and site museums' head offices at USA, France, England, Spain, Italy, Hungary, Greece, The Turkish Ministry of Culture General Directorate of Monuments and Museums, and authoritatives of Çatalhöyük Site Museum Project; texts of law, museum guide books, catalogs, brochures, statistical information were examined; museums in our country, which can be accepted as site museums like Side, Gordion, Milet, Aphrodisias, Pamukkale (Hierapolis) Archaeological Museum, were all visited and was met the head offices of site museums, authoritatives of Çatalhöyük Site Museum Project also. To support the idea of this thesis, materials such as slides, texts of law, museum catalogs, brochures and photographs, maps, illustrations from the connected publications were obtained by using all these methods. This thesis, which is formed by the result of these researches, is included seven parts like Introduction, Definitions, The Destruction Reasons of Sites, Examples of Site Museums, The Role of the Site Museums on the Protection of the Archaeological Heritage; Proposals for the Existing and the Forthcoming Site Museums and Conclusion. The following findings were established in this thesis: There isn't any official definition of site museums in international area and in our country, there are site museums in the USA, Europe and in our country, there are interferences in building site museums in Acropolis, Çatalhöyük, Troia, Zeugma and Aphrodisias, the projects of Acropolis, Çatalhöyük and Aphrodisias were done also. The result of this researches, which were done in the frame of this thesis, is site museums are necessary to protect and to research the archaeological objects in situ, to provide the security of archaeological sites, and to make the publicity of site and the region where the site museum is. By changing the existing laws, organization plan and staff structure, site museums are necessary to protect the archaeological heritage. m