Vineyard mansion turned into ethnography museum in southern Turkey 

A historical mansion, the Bag Mansion, which is a large vineyard mansion located in the central district of Bağlar in southern Diyarbakır province, will be converted into an ethnography museum as part of the Ethnography Museum Project of the Dicle University (DU), Anadolu Agency (AA) reports.

According to report, the restoration, conservation, exhibition and arrangement works have been initiated to transform the mansion, which was included in the DU’s campus 27 years ago and has been serving as a guesthouse since 1995, into a museum.

The museum will also feature artifacts donated by Professor Serap Sergül Inaloz Demir from the Department of Histology and Embryology of the DU Faculty of Medicine, the report says.

Talking to AA, Professor Neslihan Dalkılıc, from the Department of Restoration of the Faculty of Architecture at DU, said that they decided to turn the mansion into an ethnography museum so that it could be offered to the service of the people of Diyarbakır, and tourists.

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Referring to the architectural importance of the structure used as DU’s guest house for 25 years, Dalkılıc stated: “The mansion has a special meaning in terms of Diyarbakır’s architecture. We see three types of housing in this city. There are courtyard houses in the Sur district, vineyard mansions like the Bag Mansion in the Baglar district and Gazi and Erdebil Mansions around the Tigris River.”

The project also aims to highlight the cultural value of the city besides being notorious for being one of the main centres of the PKK terrorist group. Diyarbakır is also famous for watermelon, which was once brought from the field to the city centre on camels and cut with a sword, serving at least 40 people.

Meanwhile, Turkey is famous for its historical mansions from the Ottoman period.

Last month, a mansion in Istanbul, renowned by Jewish German architect, Bruno Taut, who fled Nazi Germany for Turkey, was put on sale for TL 95 million ($12.8 million).

On the other hand, Turkey led property price growth in the second quarter of 2020, a three-month window during which the coronavirus pandemic reached an apex across much of the world, according to a report from the real estate agency Knight Frank.