The Museum of the Ancient Orient was built by the famous painter and archaeologist Osman Hamdi Bey in 1883 as an Academy of Fine Arts, as it was the first school of fine arts opened in the Ottoman Empire, with a distinctive design with spacious halls. Today, it has turned into a museum in which Turkish historical monuments of Istanbul and Anatolia in general are displayed. Art and archaeological works of the countries of the Near East and their ancient cultures are displayed in a different way, as the Greek, Roman and Byzantine works whose traces remain on the land of Turkey until today.