Architect Yaşar Yılmaz has visited more than 50 museums in more than 10 countries by spending a lot of effort and adopting the passion of an amateur researcher. During these travels which he carried out with his own means and spent approximately three years; he documented and took inventory of the artifacts, which were taken away from the lands of Anatolia and currently add a great value and richness to many Western museums, after examining them on site.
His works were then published into a book entitled “Tears of Anatolia”. He gave many lectures about this subject in order to inform the society. His interviews have been featured in magazines, newspapers and tv channels.
Today, we have numerous historical and cultural artifacts that are being exhibited in museums of Europe and the US, of which a great majority have been transported (smuggled) between 1830-1922 from various regions of Anatolia to overseas through different methods, by taking advantage of the decayed and occupied Ottoman Empire.
By benefiting from this archive which Yaşar Yılmaz has revealed, we are presenting you some of the examples that were made from the stones of this land and smuggled from our country after having occupied these lands for centuries. There are still tens of thousands more of these artifacts that are exhibited in the museums and private collections of various countries which are waiting to come back to the lands they have been created in.