A. CIVILIZATION MUSEUM

The superb Museum of Anatolian Civilizations provides a perfect introduction to the complex weave of Turkey's ancient past, housing artifacts carefully selected from just about every significant archaeological site in Turkey.  The museum is housed in a fifteenth-century bedesten (covered market) on the south side of Ankara’s castle.  Its central room houses reliefs and statues.  The surrounding hall displays exhibits from Palaeolithic, Neolithic, Chalcolithic, Bronze Age, Assyrian, Hittite, Phrygian, Urartian, and Lydian periods.  Downstairs are the classical Greek and Roman artifacts and a display on Ankara's history.  Also featured are many finds from the Assyrian trading colony of Kültepe, one of the world's oldest and wealthiest bazaars.  These include baked-clay tablets found at the site, dating from the beginning of the second millennium BCE.  Most of the finds from the Phrygian capital of Gordion, including incredible inlaid wooden furniture, are on display in the museum's last rooms.  Urartian artifacts from eastern Turkey are also on display here.  Spurred by rich metal deposits, the Urartians were Anatolia's foremost metalworkers, as the knives, horse-bits, votive plates, and shields here amply demonstrate.