Malatya Metropolitan Municipality Mayor Selahattin Gürkan inspected the Arslantepe Mound Promotion and Welcome Center. Stating that the work on the welcome center continues rapidly, Mayor Gürkan said that the welcome center will be completed in a short time.
Arslantepe Mound, located in Orduzu District of Malatya's Battalgazi district, was recorded on the UNESCO World Heritage List as Turkey's 26th cultural heritage on July 2021, 19. Stating that the necessary work started after the mound was included in the World Heritage List, Mayor Gürkan added that a Welcome Center was built that will be an example for Turkey.
Providing information about the history of Arslantepe Mound, Mayor Gürkan mentioned that this place is of great importance for human civilization. Mayor Gürkan said, “We came to see and examine the Arslantepe Mound Promotion and Welcome Center on site. When we looked at the studies carried out, we saw that the studies were almost at the final stage. Following the completion of the joint and reverse ceiling operations, work will be carried out on the furnishing of the Simulation Center and other social reinforcement areas.
Orduzu Arslantepe Mound is the place where the first palace state, state bureaucracy, accounting records, customs procedures, the evolution from the first stone age to the iron age and the use of iron as tools, the separation of temple and palace, that is, the separation of state and religious affairs, came into existence in the 3500s BC.
The main reason why the Welcome Center here is made of stone walls is the adobe palace in the Arslantepe Mound, which is a palace of the Stone Age period. Of course, that period was the Stone Age. We built the Arslantepe Mound Promotion and Welcome Center from stone walls, as it symbolizes the Stone Age.
Malatya Arslantepe Mound Promotion and Welcoming Center is the most modern, most technologically advanced place in the highest segment in terms of equipment regarding the registered UNESCO Cultural Heritage of other ruins and mounds in Turkey. All financing for this place has been prepared. Hopefully, it is planned to be completed in a month or so. I hope that the Arslantepe Mound Promotion and Welcoming Center will bring good luck to our Malatya, our country and all humanity. Because Arslantepe Mound is a world cultural heritage. Arslantepe Mound is a work registered by UNESCO as the 26th Cultural Heritage of Turkey on July 2021, 19.
In the Simulation Center to be built in the mound, we will go deeper into history and ensure that the historical places of Malatya are shown to all our students. In addition, seating groups, social facilities, exhibitions, and life in the adobe palace of that period will be exhibited with photographic examples. I hope that the Arslantepe Mound Promotion and Welcoming Center will be auspicious for our Orduzu Neighborhood, Malatya, our country and humanity. Because the place where human civilization began is 'Arslantepe Mound'. "In this sense, I hope that Arslantepe Mound will be auspicious for all humanity," he said.
On the other hand, President Gürkan stated that he attended a conference at Sapienza University in Rome on February 28, 2024, and said, “Last week, I attended the exhibition and symposium about the Arslantepe Mound held at Sapienza University in Rome. Marcella Frangipane and Francesca Balossi Restelli, who carried out the work there, talked about their 45-year working process in the Arslantepe Mound. "In addition, the process of exhibiting the finds found in the mound in both the Malatya Museum and the Ethnography Museum was explained in detail."