Although home to only 1/3rd of Istanbul's population, Ankara is Turkey’s second largest city and took
over as its capital in 1923 as Atatürk believed that a new capital located in
the heart of Anatolia would symbolise a break from the Ottoman past and
facilitate the country's transformation into a modern nation-state. It was also chosen for its central location,
which was seen as more strategic and defensible than Istanbul. A couple of shots of the city as we drove in.
You can't really tell from this photo just how huge the flag was.
The 7th Century Ankara Castle is not on our itinerary, too modern I guess.
We went straight to the Museum of Anatolian Civilisations which has a reputation of being one of the finest of its kind in the world, but we reached it around 1600 hours after a day's travelling and were probably a bit too tired to take it all in.
A few shots of random things that caught my eye.
Replica Hittite monument
Female figurine.
Bronze deer Statue 2500 BC
Assyrian tablet featuring cuneiform writing, one of the earliest writing systems. Looking at the translation I think similar logic was applied to determine whether people were witches in Britain using the ducking stool.
This is an original carving from the King's Gate, Hattuşa. The ones we saw there are copies.
This is a 1200 BC limestone statue of a local King Mutallu - it looks like his hair and beard are knitted.
Our bog standard boring Radisson Blu hotel was pretty central and given it's the capital city I was surprised to see a fruit and veg market right in the centre.
Atatürk
Ornate street lights.
Melike Hatun mosque, which was just across the junction from our hotel.
Before breakfast the following day I nipped out onto the hotel's fire escape and took a couple of cityscapes.
With just 2 days to the anniversary of Ataturk's death, flags are everywhere again, although they probably never got taken down after 100th anniversary celebrations.
Interesting fungus up a tree.
