The painted Artemis head
A second-century marble head whose hair still holds its reddish-brown paint and traces of gilding, identified as Artemis only in 2021.
Dosseman — CC BY-SA 4.0 · Dosseman — CC BY-SA 4.0 · Dosseman — CC BY-SA 4.0 · Dosseman — CC BY-SA 4.0
A marble head of a woman whose hair still carries its reddish-brown paint and flecks of gilding, eighteen centuries after someone applied them: that single object is reason enough to push open the door of Bolu Museum. It was dug up in the 1970s at Kargatepe, inside the city, sat in the inventory for decades as an anonymous 'female head', and was only identified in 2021 as a second-century Artemis. Around it stand a Herakles, a Hermes bust with a long wavy beard and snail-curl fringe, the tombstone of a Roman gladiator, and a brick-lined grave moved here exactly as it was found, skeleton and burial gifts included. Together they make the point that this quiet mountain province was once part of the kingdom of Bithynia and then of Rome. The museum is small and does not pretend otherwise: one archaeology hall and one ethnography hall on the ground floor of the cultural complex in the city centre, plus a front garden lined with sarcophagi, column capitals and Ottoman gravestones. It opened in November 1981, was badly shaken by the 1999 earthquake and stayed shut until 2006. The collection runs to roughly sixteen thousand pieces, of which more than eleven thousand are coins, from Greek city issues and Roman and Byzantine emperors to the Umayyad, Artuqid, Seljuk, Ilkhanid and Ottoman coins that will detain anyone who likes tracing Islamic history through Anatolia. The ethnography hall is the part children actually enjoy: a traditional Bolu room rebuilt with its furniture and copperware, Ottoman weapons, jewellery, and the fine needle lace of Mudurnu. Because the museum occupies the ground floor, a pushchair rolls straight in, which is more than can be said for most provincial museums in Turkey. To be fair, nobody travels to Bolu for this museum. People come for Lake Abant, Gölcük and the Seven Lakes, and in winter for the Kartalkaya ski slopes. But when rain closes in over the lakes, when the family needs a cool hour out of the August heat, or when you are already in the centre for Friday prayers at the Yıldırım Bayezid Mosque, an hour here gives the trip a depth the lakes alone cannot supply.
A second-century marble head whose hair still holds its reddish-brown paint and traces of gilding, identified as Artemis only in 2021.
More than eleven thousand coins in the collection, from Greek city issues to Umayyad dinars and Seljuk and Ottoman pieces.
An Ottoman-era room rebuilt with its furniture, copperware and Mudurnu lace, the part children enjoy most.
Karamanlı Mah., Stadyum Caddesi, Kültür Sitesi, Bolu city centre
Not on a clear day; the lakes are the reason you came to Bolu. But if it rains, or you are already in the centre for lunch or prayers, an hour here costs three euros and is genuinely pleasant, especially the traditional room and the painted head. Do not give it a whole morning.
More than most archaeology museums: the museum is on the ground floor, a pushchair goes straight in, and the front garden of sarcophagi and columns buys you a few extra minutes. The archaeology hall may bore them, but the traditional room and the grave with its skeleton hold their attention.
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