Afyonkarahisar Müzesi

Afyonkarahisar Museum gathers the archaeological past of the province in a single building and can be regarded as the gateway to all of its ancient sites. The institution has its roots in the first years of the Republic. According to the Kültür Portalı, ancient artefacts began to be collected in the Taş Medrese through the efforts of the Society of Friends of Antiquities, which became an official museum depot in 1931 and a museum directorate in 1933. Turkish Wikipedia writes that the first work was started by the teacher and researcher Süleyman Gönçer. According to the same source, when it opened the museum was the only one in the region after those of Bursa and Konya. From 1933 to 1970 the museum displayed archaeological and ethnographic pieces together in the Taş Medrese. In 1971 it moved to its second building on the Konya road. In 2023 it opened to visitors in its present new building on the Afyonkarahisar-İzmir highway. The new building is easy to spot from a distance with its glass-fronted main block and the silver, cone-shaped tower rising beside it. The Kültür Portalı notes that the indoor exhibition area of the museum has five floors. The floors follow a chronological path; you move from the Chalcolithic and Bronze Ages to the Hittite, Phrygian, Lydian and Persian periods, and from there to the Hellenistic, Roman, Byzantine, Seljuk, Ottoman and Early Republican years. Terracotta vessels, stone and marble works, bone, glass and metal objects, sculptures and coins tell of the daily life, production and trade of the people who lived in the region. Reconstructions, realistic mannequins and multimedia displays support the exhibition. The fifth floor is devoted to the theme of the War of Independence. The marble works deserve special attention in this museum. Marble, today an important industry in Afyonkarahisar, was already famous in the region in antiquity. The sarcophagi, gravestones and architectural pieces in the museum show how far back this tradition goes. One of the works highlighted by the Kültür Portalı is a garland sarcophagus found during the foundation works of a hospital in Dinar and dated to the last quarter of the 2nd century AD. It is made of fine-grained white Dokimeion marble, that is, the marble of present-day İscehisar. One side shows the fight between Achilles and the Amazon queen Penthesilea, and the other the meeting of Perseus and Andromeda. The Çavdarlı-Kovalık sculpture group is one of the most striking sections of the museum. These works were found in 1964 during road construction near the village of Çavdarlı, east of the city. According to the Kültür Portalı, the group consists of 71 inventoried pieces made up of votive statues, stelae, altars and busts. Among the statues, dated to the end of the 2nd century AD, are many mythological figures such as Zeus, Apollo, Artemis, Nike, Asclepius and Heracles. The source describes this group as unique in the world in terms of its number. Another major piece in the museum is the wooden tomb chamber of the Tatarlı Tumulus. According to Turkish Wikipedia, the tumulus near the village of Tatarlı in Dinar was damaged by an illegal excavation in 1969, and the museum carried out a rescue excavation a year later. Some of the beams decorated with figures in natural dyes were smuggled abroad, and these pieces were brought back to Türkiye in 2004. The tomb chamber, which carries Phrygian and Persian traces together, was reassembled in the new building in 2023 and put on display. Bronze Age finds from the excavation carried out by the British archaeologist Winifred Lamb at Kusura Höyük in Sandıklı between 1935 and 1937 are also in the collection. Starting at the bottom and climbing the floors in order lets you see the works in their historical sequence. Do not skip the garden; Roman and Byzantine grave stelae, sarcophagi, storage jars and statues stand there in the open air together with Ottoman gravestones. It is a good idea to set aside at least an hour and a half to two hours to see the museum comfortably. Seeing this museum before heading to places such as the Phrygian valley, Amorium or Apameia makes it easier to understand the ruins you will find in the field. The museum is west of the city centre on the İzmir road; it can be reached from the centre by city bus, taxi or car. The page of the provincial culture and tourism directorate shows Monday as the closing day. Check the current visiting hours and admission conditions with the official sources before you go.