The Museum of Ethnography and Local History of Turkmenistan

The Museum of Ethnography and Local History of Turkmenistan

The Museum of Ethnography and Local History of Turkmenistan of the State Museum of the State Cultural Center of Turkmenistan was opened on May 18, 2009. The three-story building adjoins the main building of the museum. On the first floor of the museum there is an exposition dedicated to the nature of Turkmenistan, on the second - the ethnography of the Turkmen people. The Department of Nature and Local History consists of eleven sections. The first section is dedicated to the origin of the universe (where one of the valuable exhibits of the museum, the Kunya-Urgench meteorite, is located) and the evolution of life on Earth, where fossils and imprints of ancient organisms found on the territory of Turkmenistan are presented. Among them, it should be noted, are unique dinosaur footprints (age about 150 million years), discovered in the south-east of Turkmenistan (Khojapil plateau), the only traces of the ancient Arvan camel in the world (age 2.5 million years), located in the Western Kopetdag, a fragment of the jaw with a tooth of the Forest elephant and a lower jaw tooth of the Khazar elephant, which lived on the territory of Turkmenistan 100-200 thousand years ago. The second section of the museum introduces the physical and geographical characteristics of Turkmenistan. Here are presented: a climate map and a map of water basins, soil monoliths and minerals of Turkmenistan. From the third to the tenth section, the visitor gets acquainted with the regions of Turkmenistan. The journey begins with the Koytendag Mountains, to which the exhibition includes the karst Karlyuk caves, the deep-water Kettekol Lake, etc. The north of the country is represented by the Kaplankyr and Sarykamysh Lake dioramas with their flora and fauna. In the south of Turkmenistan there is a unique place – Badkhyz and the reserve of the same name, created in 1941 to preserve kulans. In this section, a magnificent diorama introduces natural monuments: the Eroylanduz Lake and wild pistachio sparse forests. There is also a collection of insects and arachnids. One of the largest dioramas is dedicated to the Kopetdag Mountains, where the fauna and flora of the mountains are presented: bezoar goat, argali, Western Asian leopard, marten, brown bear, wolf and birds – white-headed vulture, goshawk, partridges and others.