Museum of Anatolian Civilizations

National Archaeology Museum In A Restored 15th Century Bedesten And Han Below Ankara Castle; European Museum Of The Year In 1997 · Ankara, Ankara

Everything the Hittites left behind ended up here. The museum occupies a fifteenth-century covered market and caravanserai on the slope below Ankara Castle, restored in the 1940s, and it runs chronologically from Palaeolithic through to the Romans in a way that makes the whole of Anatolia legible in about two hours. The Neolithic room holds the wall paintings and the seated mother goddess from Catalhoyuk. The Bronze Age room has the Hattian gold and the stag standards from Alacahoyuk that Ankara put on its street signs. The Hittite gallery has the originals of the gate reliefs from Hattusa, which is why the ones at the site are copies, and the Phrygian room has the furniture and cauldrons from the tumulus at Gordion that may or may not have been Midas's. It was European Museum of the Year in 1997, and it is still the single best two hours anyone can spend in Ankara. Do it before Hattusa, not after.

Gozcu Sokak, Ulus, Altindag, Ankara, Ankara, Turkiye

Open daily with longer summer hours and a weekly closing day that has traditionally been Monday - confirm. Last admission well before closing. Ankara Castle above it is open ground at all hours and free. Winter hours are considerably shorter.

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