Energy cuts halt Antalya’s historical clock
ANTALYA
![Energy cuts halt Antalya’s historical clock](http://image.hurimg.com/i/hurriyet/75/0x0/6798e2906e3d93d629843816.jpg)
The clock, a replica of the original stolen years ago from Antalya's historic Clock Tower and installed last year at a cost of 3.6 million liras, often stops and loses time due to power cuts.
Restoration work on the tower, one of Antalya's most important symbols, located on fortifications dating back to the Hellenistic period, with the tower section built during the Byzantine period and converted into a clock tower during the reign of Abdulhamid II in the early 1900s, began in February 2023 and was completed last year.
During excavation in the area, which resembled a ruin and had previously been filled with concrete up to 8 meters, two 40-kilogram lead pieces were found about one meter below the surface, one related to the clock mechanism's operation and the other enabling the bell at the top of the tower to chime every hour. Additionally, the bell and other parts of the tower were handed over to the Antalya Museum Directorate for conservation.
During the restoration, it was revealed that the clocks on all four sides of the 22-meter-high tower were not original and were suspected to have been stolen in 1985. It was determined that the replacement clocks were plastic and that the iron frames used to hold these clocks had over the years caused cracks in the historic stones due to their weight. The plastic clocks were removed and extensive research was conducted to find an exact replica of the stolen clock.
One of the rare masters specializing in the repair of historical clocks, Recep Gürgen, who resides in Istanbul, was contacted. Gürgen repaired and rebuilt the clock donated by a collector, making it identical to the original from the 1900s, with the feature of chiming every hour. The clock and its internal mechanism were placed in the tower using a crane.
A budget of 3.6 million liras was spent on the project, which was completed in three years. However, the clock, which has been installed for nearly a year, is observed to occasionally stop. Due to these stoppages, time differences of up to one hour from the current time occur, catching the attention of thousands of local and foreign tourists passing by daily.
It was learned that the clock is not connected to an uninterrupted power supply and it stops occasionally due to power cuts. After power is restored, staff must climb to the clock's location to reset it to the current time, which is said to be a time-consuming operation.