Why a museum is necessary
The general case on top; beneath each, its Köyceğiz counterpart.
Sixty years of work, zero telling
What goes on in Köyceğiz, and the one thing missing, on the same timeline.
Every row is tied to a numbered source; sources at the foot of the page.
What has Köyceğiz lost?
Ask anyone in Köyceğiz and they have an answer. Some count the sweetgums on the lakeshore, some the fishing season at the weirs, some a mani verse no one sings any more. The answers differ; what they share is that none of them is recorded anywhere.
Some things we do know. The sweetgum forest around the lake fell from 6,500 to 800 hectares in fifty years. The excavation at Kaunos has not missed a season since 19667; Fethiye Museum, which tells its finds, has been closed to visitors since 2023.10 924 plant species and infraspecific taxa, 81 of them endemic, are on record for the basin.12 None of Muğla's nine museums is in Köyceğiz.16
We count what is lost not to mourn it but to record it. A museum does not bring back what has gone; it gives what remains an address, and lets knowledge pass from one generation to the next without thinning. We want to build the museum of Köyceğiz together with the state's institutions, with a university, and with the people who live in this town.
So we start with a question: what do you think Köyceğiz has lost? Your answer can be a photograph, a story, or simply a signature — each is a brick in the same wall.
Why a museum is necessary
The general case on top; beneath each, its Köyceğiz counterpart.
Preserving cultural heritage
What needs protecting in Köyceğiz is not abstract: the Kaunos excavation has run without a break since 19667 and Fethiye Museum, where the finds are shown, has been closed since 2023 over earthquake safety.10 The objects exist; the roof to keep them in the district does not.
Social memory and identity
Weir fishing, boats, citrus; tales, verses, games — everything in Cases 05 and 06 is held today only in living memory, and memory thins with every generation.
Informal education
The number of museums in the district today is zero; Köyceğiz has not a single exhibition space that could serve as a place of learning outside school.
Scientific research
The flora of Köyceğiz has no institutional reference collection, although 924 species and infraspecific taxa — 81 of them endemic — are on record for the basin.12 In Muğla's sweetgum forests 108 saproxylic beetle species in 33 families were counted, 15 of them new records for Türkiye13 — while no butterfly survey specific to Köyceğiz could be found in open sources.
Getting to know other cultures
The basin's own layers are enough: Karian, Roman, Byzantine and Ottoman traces surface in the same excavation — in 2023 a structure with a mihrab and coins of Mehmed II were found at Kaunos.5
Economic and touristic contribution
We hold no visitor or revenue figures for Köyceğiz, so no number is written here. What is known: Kaunos lies inside the district, and the district's museum count is zero — there is as yet no address to hold a visitor in the town centre.
- On-site document The information plaque on the square, Kaunos Aslanı / Lion from Caunos, Köyceğiz. Photograph: Kjf webmaster, 23 Oct 2011, CC BY-SA 3.0, Wikimedia Commons. source →
- Peer-reviewed Ufuk Çörtük, “Kaunos Antik Kenti Araştırma Tarihçesi”, bitig Edebiyat Fakültesi Dergisi 2/4 (2022), 298–321. Baki Öğün's words are quoted in this article (Öğün 1998: 175 ff.). source →
- Press Anadolu Agency, “Traces of the Ottoman period found in the excavations at Kaunos”, 18 Aug 2023. source →
- Press Türkiye Turizm, “Excavations at Kaunos have run without a break for 60 years”, 6 May 2026. source →
- Institutional source UNESCO World Heritage Centre, Ancient City of Kaunos — Tentative List, submitted 15 Apr 2014. source →
- Press Aydınlık, “The Köyceğiz film festival has not been held for 7 years”, 17 Dec 2025. source →
- Institutional source Ministry of Culture and Tourism, MüzeKart — Fethiye Museum: “Closed to visitors” (accessed 23 Aug 2026). The Kaunos site is administered by the same museum directorate. source → reason for the closure →
- Institutional source Ministry of Environment and Urbanisation, Special Environmental Protection Areas — Köyceğiz-Dalyan booklet (PDF; accessed 26 Aug 2026): c. 1,700 specimens; 924 species and infraspecific taxa in 470 genera and 110 families; 81 endemic and 20 rare species classified under IUCN criteria. source →
- Peer-reviewed İ. Harman & M. Avcı, “Contributions to the knowledge of Turkish saproxylic beetle fauna of Anatolian sweetgum forests”, Turkish Journal of Entomology 47/4 (2023), 415–431. 1,302 individuals from two sweetgum plots in Muğla; 108 species in 33 families; 15 new records for the fauna of Türkiye. The study does not give a district-level location, hence “sweetgum forests in Muğla” in the text. source →
- Institutional source DEKAMER / Ministry of Environment, Urbanisation and Climate Change, General Directorate for the Protection of Natural Assets, Köyceğiz-Dalyan SEPA Sea Turtle Research, Monitoring and Conservation Project — 2025 Final Report, Prof. Dr. Yakup Kaska and team. 770 loggerhead nests, 56,067 eggs, 38,644 hatchlings and 67% emergence success on Dalyan-İztuzu Beach; 13 tracks and 3 nests of Trionyx triunguis. source →
- Press TurkStat, Cultural Heritage Statistics, 2025 — provincial breakdown as reported in the press (8 Sep 2026): Muğla has 9 museums and 16 archaeological sites (Kaunos is one of the sites), none of the museums in Köyceğiz; 1,202,505 people visited the province's museums and sites in 2025. source →
- Peer-reviewed M. B. Arslan & H. T. Şahin, “A forgotten forest product: the Anatolian sweetgum (Liquidambar orientalis Miller)”, Bartın Faculty of Forestry Journal 18/1 (2016), 103–117. Table 1: sweetgum area in Muğla 6,312 ha in 1949, 4,316 ha in 1955, 1,337 ha in 1987, 1,416.65 ha in 2016 (Muğla Regional Forest Directorate data). source →
… people want this museum. Put your name on the wall too.
Sign — lay a brick