The ancient artifacts policy in the Ottoman Empire and the establishment of the Imperial Museum

Ottoman Empire did not have the awareness of protection of historical artifacts until the period of administrative reforms. However, within this period a different procedure started and the first idea of creating a museum in order to save historical artifacts emerged. In 1846 the first museum was established at military affairs warehouse, which was used as a military depot at that time, by Ahmet Fethi Paşa and firstly old weapons and precious items, that were collected since the beginning of Ottoman Empire, had been exhibited. The first institutional move in terms of Ottoman Empire museology and historical artifacts was done after 1869.In 1869 for the first time the term ?Müze-i Hümayun? was used for the museum, Edward Goold was appointed as museum manager and in order to prevent the extraction of historical artifacts out of empire, the legislation of ?Asâr-ı Atika Nizamnameleri? came into force consequently at 1869 and 1874.The second institutional move in terms of Ottoman Empire museology and historical artifacts occured when Osman Hamdi Bey was appointed as museum manager at 1881. In this period Ottoman museology developed its own identity as a term. The administrative, judicial and archaeological works done by Hamdi Bey during his managerial period formed a basis for the subsequent development of museum, as well as Ottoman Empire provided a true control over historical artifacts via the regulations of 1884 and 1906 which came into force in his managerial period .