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Bodrum Maritime Museum

Bodrum Maritime Museum

Bodrum Maritime Museum

The main task of the museum – transform into a rich information source our archive regarding the maritime history of Bodrum. Maintain the collection and complement it with new objects, historical documents and artifacts.

Mission

To express and celebrate our maritime culture by doing research on the documents. And objects and values of Bodrum’s maritime culture in order to reveal its history. By introduce the very first “Bodrum Type” boats that were used in the activities of sponge diving, fishing and transportation. The activities, which played a very important role in the maritime culture of Bodrum. Display the very special mastery in the construction of the boats model. To exhibit, protect and store the values of this culture for the future generations in accordance with concepts of museology.

A part of history from the Bodrum Maritime Museum

There were many boats engaged in fishing, sea transportation and sponge diving activities in Bodrum before the boatbuilding activity began again. However, the source of these boats was not Bodrum. Some of them were the Greek boats bought from Greece (there were also a few Italian boats). And there were also the boats brought by the Cretan Muslims during their relocation from Crete or Cos to Bodrum. Another important source was the boats caught illegally in the Turkish territorial waters both before and during the Second World War. Mostly from Greece, these boats were seized and later sold by the authorities. These were the only sources for the boats in Bodrum until the beginning of boatbuilding.

The development of boatbuilding in Bodrum seems to have taken place in three stages. The first stage was the period when Mehmet of Nami began his first trials and eventually built Bodrum’s very first boat in 1930s. The second stage was the time when the master of the masters Ziya Güvendiren developed the boatbuilding activity into a major trade and built the very firstgulet(pronounced goolet) of Bodrum. Finally, in the third stage, Ziya Güvendiren’s first apprentices became boat building masters of their own shops and  turned. In time, what their master developed into a nationally and internationally recognized boatbuilding tradition with its own type of boat, the Bodrum Gület.

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