Anıtkabir
Mustafa Kemal Atatürk's hilltop mausoleum, with its Lion Road, ceremonial plaza and state museum.
Anıtkabir is the mausoleum of Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, founder and first president of the Turkish Republic, set on the Anıttepe hill west of central Ankara. An international competition held in 1942 was won by the Turkish architects Emin Onat and Orhan Arda, and construction ran from 1944 to 1953, when Atatürk's remains were moved here from the Ethnography Museum. The design combines a colonnaded, temple-like hall of honour with motifs drawn from Seljuk and Hittite architecture, faced in travertine and limestone.
Visitors approach along the Lion Road, a paved avenue lined with twenty-four seated lion figures, which opens onto a broad ceremonial plaza framed by porticoes. The hall of honour holds a symbolic marble sarcophagus, with the tomb itself in a chamber below. Buildings around the plaza house the Atatürk and War of Independence Museum, displaying personal belongings, gifts of state, panoramic paintings of the war and a library. The tomb of the second president, İsmet İnönü, faces the mausoleum across the square.
Highlights
- Lion Road lined with 24 seated lion figures leading to the plaza
- Hall of honour with its large symbolic marble sarcophagus
- Atatürk and War of Independence Museum around the ceremonial square
- Designed by Emin Onat and Orhan Arda and built between 1944 and 1953
![Afrique occidentale française : Cathédrale à St Louis / [photogr. Eugène] Gallois ; [photogr. reprod. par Radiguet et Massiot pour la conférence donnée par] Gallois](https://thumb.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/0/0a/Afrique_occidentale_fran%C3%A7aise_-_Cath%C3%A9drale_%C3%A0_St_Louis_-_%28photogr._Eug%C3%A8ne%29_Gallois_%3B_%28photogr._reprod._par_Radiguet_et_Massiot_pour_la_conf%C3%A9rence_donn%C3%A9e_par%29_Gallois_-_btv1b532798828.jpg/500px-thumbnail.jpg)
![[Golestan, Le Salon et Fete de l'equinode, Teheran, Iran (le Pavillion du Trone)]](https://thumb.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/3/33/-Golestan%2C_Le_Salon_et_Fete_de_l%27equinode%2C_Teheran%2C_Iran_%28le_Pavillion_du_Trone%29-_MET_DP202918.jpg/500px--Golestan%2C_Le_Salon_et_Fete_de_l%27equinode%2C_Teheran%2C_Iran_%28le_Pavillion_du_Trone%29-_MET_DP202918.jpg)
![Théâtre de la guerre dans l'Inde sur la coste de Coromandel / par M.B.C.T. [Monsieur Bourcet Capitaine ?] ; gravé par Croisey](https://thumb.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/9/99/Fort_de_Calicuta_-_btv1b59706294.jpg/500px-Fort_de_Calicuta_-_btv1b59706294.jpg)
