the Ancient Orient was commissioned by Osman Hamdi Bey in 1883 as a fine arts school. Then it was reorganised as a museum, which opened in 1935. It was closed to visitors in 1963, and reopened in 1974 after restoration works on the interior. Collections are relating to Anatolian (Early Bronze Age, Assyrian Colony Period, Hittite, Neo-Hittite, Urartian, Aramean), Mesopotamian, Egyptian, İran, and Ancient Arabian. Egyptian collection is c.1200 items that in all kinds of Egyptian Art artifacts. Most of them had come from Dra Abu al Nagar excavations near Karnak excavated by Gautier in 1891. Others are gifts of Hıdivs of Egypt and Ottoman officers. Gallery Collection The ornate Alexander Sarcophagus, once believed to be prepared for Alexander the Great, is among the most famous pieces of ancient art in the museum. The museum has a large collection of Turkish, Hellenistic and Roman artifacts, many gathered from the vast former territories of the Ottoman Empire. The most prominent artifacts exhibited in the museum include: Four sarcophagi from the Ayaa necropolis in Sidon: The Alexander Sarcophagus, found in the necropolis of Sidon Sarcophagus of the Crying Women (Sarcophagus of the Mourning Women), also found in Sidon (in fact, the sarcophagus of Strato I, king of Sidon) The Tabnit sarcophagus and the Satrap sarcophagus. The Lycian sarcophagus of Sidon Glazed tile images from the Ishtar Gate of Babylon Statues from ancient antiquity until the end of the Roman Era, from Aphrodisias, Ephesus and Miletus Statue of an Ephebos Statue of Apollo Citharoedus from Miletus Parts of statues from the Temple of Zeus found at Bergama A marble lion from the Mausoleum of Mausolus, one of the few pieces remaining in Turkey Snake's head from the Serpentine Column erected in the Hippodrome of Constantinople Mother-Goddess Cybele and votive stelai Busts of Alexander the Great and Zeus Fragments from the temple of Athena at Assos The Troy exhibit 800,000 Ottoman coins, seals, decorations and medals One tablet with the oldest known law-collection, the laws of king Ur-Nammu Two of the three tablets of the Egyptian–Hittite peace treaty (1258 BCE), signed between Ramesses II of Egypt and Hattusili III of the Hittite Empire. It is the oldest known peace treaty in the world, and a giant poster of these tablets containing the treaty is on the wall of the United Nations Headquarters in New York City. The Saba'a Stele of the Assyrian king Adad-nirari