Museum of Barbarism

During the events that went down in history as Bloody Christmas, the wife Mürüvet İlhan and Murat-Kutsi-Hakan three children of Major Nihat İlhan, who served as a doctor in the Turkish Regiment in Cyprus, and the wife of the owner of the house they lived in, Feride Hasan Gudum were martyred in the EOKA attacks in the Kumsal area of Nicosia on 24 December 1963. The house where the incident took place was turned into museum and opened to visitors as the ‘Museum of Barbarism’ on 1 January 1966. Immediately after the 1974 Cyprus Peace Operation, the Museum of Barbarism, which was affiliated to the Directorate of Relics and Museums Department, was repaired and reorganised in 1975. In 1980, the Museum, which was expropriated by the Decree of the Council of Ministers, was reopened on 14.02.2000 by overhauling both the building itself and the exhibition elements inside, as it was worn out over time.  In 2022, the museum was restored by TIKA also landscaping and exhibition works were carried out with the understanding of modern museology.

TİKA's Contributions

The museum took its final form with the restoration, landscaping, and exhibition projects completed by TIKA in 2022 and the additional works carried out in 2023 and 2024. In the works carried out, the building was restored in a way that preserved the traces of the period and the events that took place. The exterior of the building, roof, floor and ceiling coverings, walls, doors and windows were repaired or renewed in accordance with the period. The garden and ceremony area were arranged. A security cabin and WC have been added to the garden. Modern museology techniques were applied in the exhibition project. Traditionally located display cases were removed, modern equipment was used, and the presentation was supported with projections. A chronology wall telling the history of Cyprus 1571 to 1983 and a screen telling the museum's identity were placed in the entrance hall. A memory pool has been set up in the memory room, where information and visual documents related to people who were martyred in Cyprus between 1958-1974 and who are on the missing persons list can be accessed on a large table-shaped touch screen. In the Martyrs' Room; The Martyrs' Wall was created where the names of all the martyrs of the period were projected onto the wall with visual effects. At the end of the corridor, screens called "talking portraits" with talking portraits of witnesses telling the events of that period were placed on the right and left. In the period room; showcases with clothes belonging to the family and a relief of a photograph of the family, enriched with visual effects, were placed.  In the documentary room, a documentary about the period is presented from the projector. In the bathroom, the shadowing method projected onto the wall, depicts the tragic event experienced when the shadows of a mother and 3 children slowly disappear after the gunshots. Within the scope of additional works, the monument in the ceremony area was renewed, the electrical infrastructure of the museum was strengthened and finally the ceremony area memorial platform was expanded and the rope mechanisms of the flagpoles were renewed.