Evaluation of Kars provincial museums in terms of contemporary museum

Kars Province; It is located on the Kars-Erzurum Plateau extending in the northeast-southwest direction in the Eastern Anatolia Region of our country. The city has a harsh continental climate, with long and cold winters and short and cool summers. It is known that the city took its name from the Karsaks of the Velentur tribe of Bulgarian Turks who settled in this region from the Dagestan region of the North Caucasus in 130-127 BC. Kars is the only province in Turkey with an old Turkish name. The oldest historical record of Kars, which has hosted many civilizations, dates back to the 2nd millennium BC, that is, the Middle Bronze Age. The city, which was first used as a castle during the Urartian period, is thought to have maintained urban settlement for more than 2,800 years. Kars, the first settlement center when entering Anatolia from the Caucasus, has witnessed the transition of many civilizations. For this reason, it is a settlement that has been inhabited for thousands of years. It is seen that the majority of the historical buildings in the city consist of immovable cultural assets from the Middle Ages. As a result of the Ancient Ani Ruins, located on the historical Silk Road and within the borders of Arpaçay district, and the numerous archaeological settlements around it, the need for the protection of a rich Movable and Immovable Cultural Heritage has emerged. In order to meet this need, the Museum Clerkship was first established in the Provincial Mansion in 1959. Afterwards, since the works collected from the region could not fit here, the "Apostles Church" (Kümbet Mosque) was converted into a museum and used from 1964 to 1978. After these steps, a new museum building was built in Kars Central Station District in 1978 and opened to visitors as "Kars Archeology and Ethnography Museum" in 1981. Kars Museum, organized on two floors, is divided into three parts: Archeology Hall, Ethnography Hall and the Stone Artifacts section exhibited in the garden. In the Archeology Hall; Paleolithic period artifacts, stone hand axes, dinosaur bones; Old Bronze Age artifacts and metal artifacts of this period, various artifacts from the Urartian period, coins from different periods; Works from the Roman and Byzantine periods, works from the Christian period. Seljuk period works; Findings from the Kars Ani Ruins excavation are exhibited. On the second floor of the museum building; There is an ethnography hall. In this section, local and traditional textiles, Ottoman kaftans, copper kitchen utensils, Caucasian belts made of silver material, manuscripts and seals are exhibited. The works exhibited in the museum garden are; It mostly consists of tombstones and cist graves made of stone material, reflecting the culture of the region and its immediate surroundings. T.R. In addition to the Archeology and Ethnography Museum affiliated with our Ministry of Culture and Tourism, two new museums were opened: the Caucasian Front War History Museum in 2017 and the Kars Cheese Museum in 2022. These museums; It was created during the 1877-1878 Ottoman-Russian War (93 War) as a result of the conversion of military bastion buildings used in the war into a museum. The first of the bastions used as a museum was built by T.R. It is the "Caucasian Front War History Museum" affiliated with the Ministry of Culture and Tourism. The second is the "Kars Cheese Museum", which was opened as a Private Museum under the Governorship of Kars. With this master's thesis; Kars Archeology and Ethnography Museum, Caucasian Front War History Museum and Kars Cheese Museum, located in Kars Province in the Eastern Anatolia Region, were examined within the scope of art history methodology and the contributions of these museums to the changing and developing contemporary museology in our country were tried to be revealed.