Light as a Feather
The Art of Weights and Measures Exhibition Tour

Guided Tour

February 28, 2025 / 18:30

Egyptians weighed the goods on their scales and people’s sins. To the Egyptians, the heart was the source of human wisdom and the centre of emotions and memory. In the rite of the weighing of the heart, the deceased's heart was weighed on the scale against the feather of the goddess Maat, who personified order and truth. The heart symbolized the deceased’s conscience, while the feather symbolized justice. If the heart weighed exactly the same as or less than the feather's weight, the deceased could pass into the afterlife. But if the heart weighed more than the feather, it would have been devoured by the awaiting monster with the head of a crocodile and the body of a lion, Ammit.

The guided tour explores the Art of Weights and Measures exhibition from a thematic perspective. The tour examines Anatolia's social and economic history spanning four millennia through metaphors shaped around the concepts of weights and measures. Through the exhibited artefacts, participants will have the opportunity to experience the development of these concepts across Mesopotamia, Anatolia, Egypt, the Aegean, and the Mediterranean regions.

The 45-minute guided tour is free of charge and will be in Turkish. The capacity is limited. To secure your spot for the tour, kindly make a reservation by emailing resepsiyon@peramuzesi.org.tr.

Image Credit
Bronze Weight Depicting a Sphinx
800-700 BC
Suna and İnan Kıraç Foundation Anatolian Weights and Measures Collection

Temporary Exhibition

The Art of Weights and Measures

As the measurement of discovery became the substance of myths, weighing and measuring, beyond being mere physical actions, became an important means of self-expression to those captivated by the universe and what lay beyond the boundaries of knowledge. 

The Art of Weights and Measures

Seaside Leisure

Seaside Leisure

Istanbul’s Seaside Leisure: Nostalgia from Sea Baths to Beaches exhibition brought together photographs, magazines, comics, objects, and books from various private and institutional collections, and told a nostalgic story while also addressing the change and socialization of the norms of how Istanbulites used their free time. Istanbul’s Seaside Leisure was a documentary testament of the radical transformations in the Republic’s lifestyle. 

Reality Bites!

Reality Bites!

Works by a large number of students from the Academy of Fine Arts in Sarajevo deal with current and often painful themes from the socio-political, economic and cultural reality, raising awareness, appealing, warning, opening issues and offering new interpretations.

Medicinal Herbs in Byzantium

Medicinal Herbs in Byzantium

Knowledge of plants and the practice of healing are closely entwined. The toxic or hallucinogenic nature of some roots, and the dangers associated with picking them, conferred a mythical or magical character and power.