Zonguldak Karadeniz Ereğli Museum

Ereğli Museum, known as Halil Paşa Mansion, is a masonry building structure; where three floors with a basement and a plan which is a central sofa type. Halil Paşa Mansion was built in the late 19th century by Halil Paşa Karamahmutoğlu who was one of the prominent figures of the city. In this Mansion, Sapolian material (Spolia) collected from Roman buildings was reused especially on the facade decorations. It was used as a secondary school and a girls' vocational school for a while. The mansion, which was allocated to the Ministry of Culture in 1989, has been put into service since 08.01.1998 after 10 years of restoration work. The museum, which was closed to visitors in August 2007 due to exhibition arrangements, was opened to visitors on 07.06.2008 after intense work.

On the ground floor Marble grave steles belonging to Grecian, Roman, and Byzantine periods collected from Ereğli and its environs are exhibited. Glass containers, pieces of jewelry, foundlings from the excavations at the ancient city of Filyos, Yassıkaya Cave Foundlings, Inonu Cave finds and Greek, Roman, Byzantine, Abbasid, Umayyad, Sassanid, Artuqid, Seljuk and Ottoman coin collections are also exhibited on the ground floor. On the first floor where offices related to the execution of administrative services are placed, terracotta amphoras, seals, and tambalas belonging to the Hittite, Byzantine, and Ottoman Periods, and also bullas are exhibited. On the second floor various men’s and women’s clothes, “Elpek” fabric which is a local weaving, weaving tools, handkerchief, fardel, woven types, guns, jewelry, seals, tobacco articles, prayer beads, clock, kitchen utensils, measuring and weighing instruments, writing and printing molds and also regional ethnographic works consisting of maps are presented. The third floor is furnished in form of a museum-house in compliance of the period. There are living rooms, guest rooms, daily rooms, and bedrooms on the floor which are designed according to the traditional architecture of an Ereğli house. In the garden of the museum, Greek, Roman, Byzantine, and Ottoman column heads and bodies, grave steles, gravestones, pedestals, various architectural pieces, sarcophaguses, and grave monuments of famous pantomime artists Krispos are exhibited.