Naval Museum — Attraction in Beşiktaş

In 1897, Naval Museum was established under the name of “The Museum and Library Administration Office” in a small building in the Imperial Dockyard with Sultan Abdülhamit II’s permission and Minister of Navy Bozcaadalı Hasan Hüsnü Pasha’s orders. The museum served in various buildings regarding the conditions of that time. Finally, in 1961, the Museum was moved to a building in Beşiktaş (which was previously served as the Treasury) and began to serve here under the name of “The Naval Museum and Archive Directorate”.

Storage near this building which was built in the 20th century and had been previously used as aircraft shed, repair workshop and garage was assigned for the Museum. The historical boats collection consisting of the galley and the imperial caiques was transferred to this building and this collection was opened to public in “The Gallery of Historical Caiques” in 1971.

As the building which served as the Gallery of Historical Caiques was actually designed as a depot, the museum staff encountered some problems in preserving and displaying the collection. In order to overcome these obstacles, it was decided to build a new museum building in the available area. In this context, a national architectural design competition was organized on 14 August 2005. In 2008, the award-winning architectural design was chosen to be built as the new museum building.

Finally, the construction of the new museum building consisting of the annex exhibition building, the gallery of historical caiques, the cultural center and the open exhibition area began according to the modern museology concept. First of all, a temporary depot was built in order to preserve the historical caiques during the construction period. In 2009, the caiques were transferred to this depot.

When the renovation/restoration process of the Naval Museum completed in September 2013, the collection of historical caiques was transferred to this building. The new museum began to welcome its visitors on 4...

The Istanbul Naval Museum Or İstanbul Deniz Müzesi, was established in 1897 by the Ottoman Minister of the Navy (Bahriye Nazırı) Bozcaadalı Hasan Hüsnü Pasha.

The museum contains an important collection of military artifacts about the Ottoman Navy. In the maritime field, it is Turkey's largest museum, with a great variety of collections. Around 20,000 pieces are present in its collection, including the late 16th or early 17th century Ottoman galley known as Tarihi Kadırga, built in the period between the reigns of Sultan Murad III (1574–1595) and Sultan Mehmed IV (1648–1687), as evidenced by AMS radiocarbon dating and dendrochronological research. It is the only surviving original galley in the world and has the world's oldest continuously maintained wooden hull.

The basement consists of diverse items like figureheads, ornaments of naval ships, ship models, and pieces of the Byzantine chain that was used for blocking the entrance of the Golden Horn during the Ottoman conquest of Constantinople (Istanbul) in 1453. On the first and second floors, a large number of imperial and other caïques are exhibited.

Many exhibition items underwent special restoration and conservation works due to the deformation of the raw materials caused by heat, light, humidity, atmospheric conditions, vandalism, and...

Better come here before 2 PM. In front of the museum states that it will close at 5 PM, last ticket at 4 PM. So we decided to enter this museum at 3.40 PM as we think we still have time.

At 3. 50 PM the staff came and said that they were about to close the first floor of within 5 mins and rush us.

And they kept doing this until 5 PM for every floor, following us and other groups who purchased the tickets at the same time.

The museum is big and has many details to read and explore, but these guys ruined our reading by saying we are going to close every 10 mins such annoying.

The tickets seller should inform us at first if they way their close the museum is working in this way. Such money hungry. Selling the tickets but kicked the customer right away.

Still this museum is great to visit for people who love history but strongly recommend not to buy tickets after 2 PM, otherwise you may...