The Meerschaum Museum

Meerschaum (lűletaşı in Turkish) is an opaque, white, grey or cream colored sedimentary stone - H₄Mg₂Si₃O₁₀.  Eskişehir is more or less the only place in the world where high quality meerschaum can be found and mined (but there are smaller deposits in other areas of the world, including Pennsylvania and Utah). Turkey prohibits its exportation of raw, block meerschaum, so all meerschaum pipes in the world were mined, carved, etc here. These are some photos I took at the wonderful small meerschaum museum here that has many amazing carvings, including some that are fairly old and others that have a very modern vibe.