Today's Zaman reported November 10th that "few of Turkey's archaeology museums or storage facilities have been built to a code which could withstand an earthquake similar to the magnitude 7.2 temblor that struck Turkey's Van province on October 23."

Istanbul's Archaeology Museum consists of a main building constructed during Ottoman rule around the turn of the 20th century; the second is six-storeys; and the third is another Ottoman building which was once the Fine Art School. The Istanbul Archaeological Museum has not been upgraded like the Anatolian Civilization Museum in Ankara. It seems like a potpouri of artefacts from the eight thousand years of occupation of this land and the areas once attached throughout the Ottoman Empire. The depth of the collection challenges the visitor to think beyond the more traditional Classical Histories of the Greeks and Romans of Western Europe.