Seeds and Metaphors
The Art of Weights and Measures Exhibition Tour

Guided Tour

May 31, 2024 / 18:30

Although the act of weighing was quite simple in itself, trying to formulate the units for measuring was conceptual and complex. The ancient Mesopotamian civilizations laid the foundations of the units of weight based on barley seeds as a result of their daily practices. Ancient Egyptians, on the other hand, used the metaphor of weighing the souls of the deceased to cross the boundaries of everyday life and make sense of life after death. Understanding what cannot be measured was a difficult task, even thousands of years ago.

The guided exhibition tour explores the four-thousand-year social and economic history of Anatolia, focusing on metaphors shaped around the concepts of weight and measurement. Participants also have the opportunity to see the objects that are not displayed in the exhibition.

The 45-minute guided tour is free of charge, and the language is Turkish. The quota is limited. To join the tour, you can make a reservation via resepsiyon@peramuzesi.org.tr e-mail address.

Temporary Exhibition

The Art of Weights and Measures

As the measurement of discovery became the substance of myths, weighing and measuring, beyond being mere physical actions, became an important means of self-expression to those captivated by the universe and what lay beyond the boundaries of knowledge. 

The Art of Weights and Measures

Remembering the Future

Remembering the Future

How can the future be imagined by looking at a collection or an archive? The lasting quality of ceramics allows us to ponder how the future might be remembered through a ceramics collection, since they render conceivable time eternal.

Memory Building Memories / Memory Room / Memento Mori

Memory Building Memories / Memory Room / Memento Mori

Each memory tells an intimate story; each collection presents us with the reality of containing an intimate story as well. The collection is akin to a whole in which many memories and stories of the artist, the viewer, and the collector are brought together. At the heart of a collection is memory, nurtured from the past and projecting into the future.

A Solitary Eagle in the Sinai Desert

A Solitary Eagle in the Sinai Desert

John Frederick Lewis is considered one of the most important British Orientalist artists of the Victorian era. Pera Museum exhibited several of Lewis’ paintings as part of the Lure of the East exhibition in 2008 organized in collaboration with Tate Britain.