A good way to get insight into the complex, deeply layered culture and history of the country is to visit Tokyo Suntory Museum of Art. More than 600 artifacts and artworks are on loan from Istanbul 's Sadberk Hanim Museum in Turkey “Great Civilization and Art,” one of the events commemorating the Year of Turkey in Japan.

The exhibition spans 7,000 years of human settlement in the Anatolian Peninsula, the land mass that constitutes the vast majority of what is today Turkey. Throughout its history, the area has been a great cultural bazaar straddling East and West. At different times it has come under Greek, Byzantine, and Roman, Chinese and European influence, to name a few major cultures. Thousands of minor ones have also made their presence felt.

Arguably, no other region has seen such a parade of cultures and civilizations, sometimes blending with one another. "Just scratch the earth in Turkey and you are bound to uncover something," said Serdar Anglagan, the Sadberk Hanim Museum 's interior architect, who was on hand for the exhibition's opening.

Reiko Niwa, a curator at the Suntory Museum of Art, adds: "The changes from one era to the next in Turkey are so dramatic; it is sometimes difficult to follow the continuity."

Continuity or not, there is no shortage of variety, from the pottery of early human settlements, to artifacts bearing traces of Jonian and Hellenic Greek influences, to items reflecting the sway of Rome and Constantinople. 

During the reign of the Ottoman Empire, Turkey ruled much of the Middle East and parts of Asia and Europe. In the process, it produced some astonishing ceramics, calligraphy and textiles.

Inevitably, military motifs reoccur throughout the displays, yet militarism never dominates, as through war and conquest were meaningless unless they created the space for art and culture to flourish.