Ankyra from the Galatians to Rome

Leave the M1 at Ulus, pass the Victory Monument on Ulus Square and walk towards Anafartalar Avenue; the Roman Road opens in front of you two to three metres below today's ground level, as a railed open air site. It was uncovered in 1995 during foundation digging for the Ulus City Bazaar, under Prof. Dr. Cevdet Bayburtluoğlu with specialists from the Museum of Anatolian Civilizations and Ankara University. Because it was the north-south main street of Roman Ankyra it is called the cardo maximus, and it runs parallel to Atatürk Boulevard. Excavation exposed a 216 metre stretch: a 6.7 metre wide road paved with andesite, flanked by kerb blocks 1.5 metres wide and 20 centimetres high. On the western side a portico with mosaic paving and rows of shops were found; the pottery shows the road is no later than the first century AD. Its continuation appeared in 2006 during digging for the Governor's Office car park, and excavations in 2007 produced an 1,800 year old statue of Hermes along with Seljuk oil lamps and Ottoman pipes.

Under a protocol between the Ministry of Culture and Tourism and the Metropolitan Municipality, a 640 square metre section was laid out and opened to visitors at the end of 2024, with walkways, wire railings, lighting, a cleaned and exposed well and information panels with QR codes. Sources also mention a section preserved under glass in the Governor's Office garden; as it is a government building, leave that to chance, the main stop is this open site.

Notice how far the road lies below the present level; that is two thousand years of fill between the Roman city and the Republican one. The glass, coins, lamps and mosaics from the dig are in the Museum of Anatolian Civilizations, which you will see at the end of the day.

Source: Wikipedia (Ankara Roma Yolu); Başkent Gazetesi; Yeni Ankara; Kültür Envanteri.

Climb from Anafartalar Avenue to the Hacı Bayram hill; the temple stands beside the mosque and is seen from outside. On this route we look less at the building than at the text on its walls. The temple was built between 25 and 20 BC, just after Galatia became a Roman province, in honour of Augustus and the goddess Roma. It is built of marble; the original plan had fifteen columns along each long side and six along each short side. After Augustus died in AD 14 the record of his deeds that he had written himself, the Res Gestae Divi Augusti, was carved here: the Latin text on the two inner walls of the pronaos, the Greek translation on the outer wall of the cella. Since the bronze original in Rome is lost, these walls are the most complete copy to survive, which is why the building is known as the Monumentum Ancyranum. In 1555 a Habsburg embassy to the Ottoman court read the inscription and made it known in the West.

In the Byzantine period, around the fifth century, windows were cut and the building became a church; today the two side walls and the ornamented door frame stand, and the positions of six columns can be made out. Earthquakes and weather have worn the walls, so the World Monuments Fund placed the temple on its 2002 and 2004 lists and conservation studies were carried out with Middle East Technical University.

To read the inscription, look at the inner faces on the pronaos side by the door frame; the letters show best in morning light. The mosque courtyard is a place of worship: if you arrive at prayer time, wait, keep quiet and do not give loud explanations in the courtyard. From here you walk down to Hisarparkı Avenue and the theatre.

Source: Wikipedia (Augustus Tapınağı); Wikipedia (Monumentum Ancyranum); TDV İslam Ansiklopedisi.

The theatre sits on the north-western slope of the castle, facing Bentderesi, just above Hisarparkı Avenue. It came to light in 1982 during foundation digging for a building; between 1982 and 1986 it was excavated by specialists from the Museum of Anatolian Civilizations and faculty of Ankara University's Classical Archaeology department, it was listed as a protected site in 1992, and a second excavation followed in 2009-2010. The exact date of construction is unknown; sources place it between the first and second centuries AD, with a renovation under Hadrian and the orchestra turned into a water basin in the third century. The structure, roughly 59 by 46.5 metres, leans against the slope: a semicircular cavea, vaulted passages, an orchestra 12 to 13 metres across and a stage building with five doors. Five doors are rare in Roman theatres and are considered an Anatolian trait. The material is Ankara's andesite. Capacity is given as between three and five thousand. The Aktia games held in memory of Augustus's victory at Actium took place here.

The restoration begun by the Metropolitan Municipality in 2020 laid out the theatre and its surroundings as an archaeopark, opened to visitors on 8 June 2025. The new seating holds about fifteen hundred; the first two rows are Afyon marble, the upper rows andesite, the stage is timber on steel. Experts criticised the use of white marble, so look with that in mind. The original stones are displayed on the north-eastern axis, and there are walkways and night lighting.

From the avenue the whole structure is visible; enter by the walkways and do not climb the steps. Morning light falls squarely on the cavea. The excavation finds are in the Museum of Anatolian Civilizations. From here the climb to the castle begins.

Source: Wikipedia (TR ve EN); DergiPark (Demirdağ, Amisos 2017); Hürriyet Daily News; Ankara Büyükşehir Belediyesi; Digital Ankyra.

Climbing from the theatre to the castle, look at the walls stone by stone this time. The hill was fortified from the Phrygian period, the Galatians reused it in the third century BC, but the walls you see are Byzantine. According to English Wikipedia both lines of wall were built after the Persian destruction of around 622; the inner wall probably in the seventh century under Emperor Constans II, the outer one somewhat later. The TDV Encyclopaedia of Islam records that Michael III had the walls repaired in 859. The inner castle encloses an area of roughly 350 by 150 metres; on walls 14 to 16 metres high stand 42 towers, most of them pentagonal. On the outer wall the towers are about forty metres apart.

The real subject of this route is reused stone. In the rebuilding of the eighth and ninth centuries, marble blocks, column capitals and marble water channels from Roman monuments then lying in ruins were built into the walls. Walking along the inner wall after the gate, look at the lower courses: neatly cut white marble blocks, column pieces laid on their sides and grooved channel stones stand out at once inside the andesite fill. Some of the stones stripped from the theatre and the street you saw in the morning are very probably in these walls.

Climbing the Şark Tower and taking in the theatre below, the Hacı Bayram hill and the line of the Roman Road in one frame pulls the day's geography together. Ak Kale is the highest point of the inner castle. The paving is cobbled and the slope steep, slippery in rain. Take your lunch break inside the castle, then move on to the two museums on Gözcü Street.

Source: Wikipedia (Ankara Kalesi); Wikipedia (Ankara Castle); TDV İslam Ansiklopedisi.

The Erimtan Archaeology and Arts Museum on Gözcü Street inside the castle opened on 14 March 2015 with the collection that the businessman Yüksel Erimtan had gathered since 1960; it is Ankara's first private museum. It occupies three restored historic houses, its outer face built with stone resembling the castle walls and its inner walls carrying inscriptions in Roman style; beside the galleries there are a multi purpose hall, an education workshop and a library. The collection holds around two thousand objects, most of Anatolian origin: vessels, jugs, measuring cups, perfume bottles, tweezers, mirrors, jewellery and coins from the Hittite, Urartian, Assyrian, Achaemenid, Hellenistic, Roman and Byzantine periods.

What you are after on this route is Roman daily life. The museum's website highlights its Roman ring stones, coins, glass and jewellery; these are the things carried in the pockets and worn on the fingers of the people who filled the theatre you saw in the morning and shopped in the stalls along the cardo. Follow the emperors' portraits in order through the coin cases: the series beginning with Augustus tells you under which emperors Ankyra grew rich. The glass section shows how objects this fine survived two thousand years. Do not let the small size of the pieces hurry you; slow down in front of the well lit cases.

The museum is closed on Mondays; it has no car park, and group visits need advance booking. There is a programme of concerts, talks and workshops, so check the official website for the current calendar and admission. The Museum of Anatolian Civilizations is a few steps away on the same street.

Source: Erimtan Müzesi resmi sitesi; Wikipedia (Erimtan Arkeoloji ve Sanat Müzesi).

The last stop of the day is where the finds from the excavations you have been looking at since morning are displayed. The museum was founded in 1921 as the Hittite Museum in the Akkale tower of the castle; the Mahmut Paşa Bedesten and the Kurşunlu Han were restored, the first section opened in 1943, the present name came in 1968 and in 1997 it was chosen European Museum of the Year. The upper floor runs chronologically from the Palaeolithic to Urartu; what this route needs is the lower floor, the section the museum's website calls Classical Periods and Ankara Through the Ages. The shop wall fragments, mosaics, glass, coins, lamps and pottery from the Roman Road excavation and the statues and architectural pieces from the Roman Theatre are here. In these cases you learn what was sold in the shops of the cardo you saw empty in the morning and which statues adorned the theatre's stage building.

An important warning: at the time of writing the Ankara and Classical galleries on the lower floor were closed for long term maintenance. This route depends on exactly those galleries, so check the museum's website before you go. If they are closed, turn to the Phrygian section upstairs: the finds from the Phrygian mounds in Ankara, the people who lived on this hill before the Galatians, tell the city's story before the Galatian layer.

The museum is at Gözcü Street No 2, a few steps from Erimtan, and has audio guides. The official website says there is no closing day, but confirm the hours there. Give time to the large pieces in the central hall of the bedesten and the small ones in the rooms around it; two hours is enough for the sections on this route, not for the whole museum.

Source: muze.gov.tr (Anadolu Medeniyetleri Müzesi); Wikipedia; Başkent Gazetesi; Türkiye Turizm Ansiklopedisi.