What you should do to visit Turkey’s biggest maritime museum is just to go to Beşiktaş. Located right at the coastline, Istanbul Maritime Museum is a very interesting and striking place that contains numerous objects and interesting information on maritime coming from past to present.
Turkey’s first military museum, Istanbul Maritime Museum was launched first in the Golden Horn in 1897 by courtesy of Sultan Abdülhamid the Second and with the efforts of Admiral Hikmet Pasha. The museum moved to Beşiktaş in 1961.
Under the administration of the Naval Forces Command, Istanbul Maritime Museum came into service again in 2013 in line with the modern museum management understanding after completion of the building and restoration works started in 2008.
The collection of Istanbul Maritime Museum, which is Turkey’s biggest maritime museum and one of the world’s very few museums in terms of collection diversity, includes almost 20,000 artefacts including also the oldest surviving galley of the world.
Among the collections of the museum, there are Atatürk’s belongings, historical rowboats, weapons, maps, pictures, model ships, figureheads, navigation instruments, ship components, plates, bells, rigging, sultans’ signatures, banners, lanterns, charters, royal decrees, scripts, uniforms, decorations, medals, coins, stamps, seals, tombstones, epitaph, lithographs, amphoras, watches and clocks, furniture, and photographs.
In the museum that contains 14 “Imperial Caiques” used by the padishah, one of the most interesting objects is the chain used at the sea to block the Golden Horn to the Ottoman Navy during the siege of Constantinople by Sultan Mehmed the Conqueror. The pieces of this chain that caused transportation of the Ottoman Navy over the land in 1453 were used for a while after the conquest of Constantinople, and then stored in the shipyard in the Golden Horn.
Let us remind you that the museum open to visits from 09:00 to 17:00 on weekdays and from 10:00 to 18:00 on weekends is closed on Mondays.
