The ancient monuments in Burdur and its environs were formerly collected and conserved in the library building, which is the only remaining building of Bulguroğlu (Pirgulzade) School and thus the first steps towards the constituting of the museum were taken. The opening ceremony of the exhibition halls of Burdur Museum was held in 1969.
Today, Burdur Museum is among the first 10 – 15 museums of our country with its 50.000 monuments. The museum, which is very rich in monuments, is insufficient in terms of place. The museum shall gain a new identity with new exhibition halls to be built in 1998.
Burdur represents the common features of Mediterranean, Aegean and Central Anatolian civilizations in terms of its location. The findings in Burdur Museum are the historical and cultural treasury of a past of 9000 years, since BC 7000 to date.
There are 3 sections in Burdur Archaeology Museum to examine:
1.Garden (Open Exhibition): Statues, steles, various architectural objects, tombs and tombstones, incomplete inscriptions, high embossments, etc. of Phrygian, Hellenistic, Roman, Byzantine and Ottoman Times are exhibited in the garden of the museum.
2. Statue Hall: Almost all of the monuments exhibited in this hall have been brought from the archaic city of Kremna within the borders of Bucak District of Burdur in the 18th century. These monuments include a Great and Lesser Athena, Hygieia, Leto, Apollo, Nemesis, Dionysos, Aphrodite and woman statues with cloths, all of high artistic value.
3. Small Monuments Hall: The monuments in this hall are arranged in chronological order. Among the monuments exhibited in this hall, there are monuments of Late Neolithic, Early and Late Chalcolithic and Early Bronze ages found in excavations carried out in Hacılar – Kuruçay – Höyücek tumuli, earthenware, painted and unpainted vessels of the Iron Age and of Prygian, Persian, Hellenistic, Roman and Byzantine Periods, Goddess figurines, stone and bronze axes and other tools, ornaments, cosmetic material, rhyton vessels, seals and cylindrical stamps representing ownership and legal concepts, oil – lamps and their moulds, metal god figurines, bronze athlete statues, coins, and beautiful statue findings and other small findings dicovered in excavations at the ancient city of Sagalassos, which has been one of the largest archaeological digging sites in our country these last ten years.
When Burdur Museum was built in 1956, it was small; however, it acquired a great number of monuments. As a result of the archaeological excavations (Hacılar, Kuruçay, Höyücek, İncirhan, Bubon and Sagalassos), the number of the movable cultural monuments in the museum reached 52.941 in 1997, with those obtained by confiscation, donation and purchasing. 18.521 of these monuments are archaeological, 29.765 of them are coins and 4.655 of them are ethnographical cultural monuments. It is possible to find the most beautiful exsamples of all ages and periods, starting from the Neolithic Age.
STONE ROOM
“Stone Hall”, which is located in Veyis Street, Pazar District of Burdur, is an exsamples of 17th century Ottoman civil architecture. It is supposed that it has taken its name from the main room built in stone. It is also supposed that the building was erected by Mahmut Pasha, one of the notables of Burdur, in the middle of the 17th century; but there is no record on this subject.
This duplex building is located in a garden; the first floor is made of stone and the upper floor is made of sun-dried brick. Wooden material was also used in the building.
There are two rooms in the first floor with two loop-holed windows, which are open at two ends and with sharp-pointed arches.All the doors on the second floor open to the hall. At the exit of the hall, there is main room at the right. At the entrance of the main room, which is the oldest and the best conserved part of the Stone Room, there are closets for bedding and wardrobes, furnaces with paddle-box and a terrace section separated by a Bursa arch. The windows looking through the hall and outside the room are in two lines; and those in the upper line are of geometric design, colored stained-glassed, upper floor windows. The lower ones have wooden coverings and their mouldings are ornamented by carved plant motives. There are gilded eulogies on the wardrobes and windows written for the owner of the . The vases and various floral ornament in the niches on the closets up to the ceiling are carved.
There are circle and star shaped ornaments on the wooden ceiling, divided by a Bursa arch. The stars are carved embossments; they are overlaid with golden and silver leaf. The hexagonal ceiling edge is ornamented with floral motives.
There are four more rooms on the upper floor of the main room. There is a wooden ceiling with a central boss in the chest room, which is located at south of the hall.
Observe that the hall is furnished by wooden grills in order to prevent anyone seated in the hall to be seen outside.
BAKİBEY MANSION (KOCAODA)
It is in the environs of Paşa Bridge in Değirmenler District of Burdur. The building, which was restored by the Ministry of Culture, is a good sample of 18th century Ottoman civilian architecture in terms of plan and ornamentation.
The building is seen to be registered on Mr. Reşit in the beginning of 1800s. ıt is supposed that the building was made by the grandfather Ahmet Pasha or his father Mehmet Pasha.
The first floor of the duplex building is made of stone and the upper floor is made of sun-dried brick. The house has sections such as stable, barn in the first floor and a stone stair is being used to climb to upstairs. Symmetric part of the stair was destroyed, and this shows that some parts of the building was destroyed as well.
There is a wide vaulted recess in the upper floor towards the garden. The ceiling of the vaulted recess is important in terms of ornaments and wooden workmanship. The eaves of the roof are good samples in terms of sculptured wooden workmanship. The engraving on the closets, wardrobes and windows; ornaments with gold – silver leafs on the ceiling and the ornaments made with plant motifs which are in the main room at left end of the vaulted recess are very beautiful. There are ornaments made with chisel at all ornamental borders. There are hexagonal stars in the middle of the ceiling.
