The Adana archaeological museum is one of the ten oldest museums in Turkey – opened already in 1924, the official government website mentions: www.adanamuze.gov.tr. You don’t need to speak Turkish to understand the unique pieces to be seen in this museum: “Neolitik, Kalkolitik, Bronz, Proto-Hitit, Hitit, Yunan, Roma, Bizans, Selçuk ve Osmanlı devirlerine ait eserlerinin yanı sıra, az miktarda Asur, Fenike ve Ermeni eseri….” But you can find some English information here: Adana_Archaeology_Museum and here, including beautiful pictures: adanaarchaelogical. Unfortunately that is all you will see as they closed this museum completely.
I was in Adana for a trademission with our ambassador and I decided to book a later return ticket the next day, because I really wanted to see this museum. I found myself in front of a locked fence. ‘I will talk myself into it’, I thought. In Turkey, most things are possible if you are kind and you speak Turkish. But the guard at the fence was different: there was no way to see even a glimpse of the beauty in this museum. ‘There were not enough visitors’, he explained and ‘it is my responsibility, I cannot do it’.
In the meantime, I am reading the book Toprak from Buket Uzuner. I bought it at the airport in Istanbul, it was in the Top 10 of Turkish books. In that book a teacher says about the Hitite city of Çorum (page 31, sorry for failures in translation, my fault): “Children, if the Hitites had lived in a western country, I guarantee you, the world’s most important archeologists and historians would work there, all the world’s tourists would stream into the city. If the people of Çorum would become master of their local history, Çorum would already have developed as an international star with trade and book fair, food and tourism festivals on world level. Be sure children that if you want it, the Hitite heritage will attract as much attention as the Egyptian pyramids, an important jewel! (…)”
Need I say more. Heritage, a matter of neglect or a matter of joy and wealth.
Let’s keep hope that one day the museum will open again. It is not difficult to find, if you see this spectacular new Sabancι mosque, go around the corner and you have arrived.
Other archaeological museums in Turkey’s South
Archeaological museum Gaziantep
Medusa Glass Museum
And the Archaeological museum Amman, Jordan
Street cats in Adana
he street cats’ behaviour, they are afraid. It was almost impossible to take pictures of street cats because they would run away immediately like this very small and sad kitten. It really panicked, terrible; it did not think ‘hey here is a friend that will give me some food’. The only cat I could photograph quitely was a sick cat, also quite sad: 
Elections in Turkey are coming up and it is impossible to overlook them! I went to a trade mission in Adana and Mersin last week with the Dutch ambassador, his team and other entrepreneurs and we saw and heard the elections everywhere. Cars with loudspeakers shout out their messages: ‘Hey Adana’ and then the text of their campaign follows in a volume that forms an interruption for your conversation – just wait untill they passed to continue.
