Çanakkale Archaeological Museum

The Çanakkale Archaeological Museum (Turkish: Çanakkale Arkeoloji Müzesi) was an archaeological museum located in Çanakkale, a city on the Anatolian side of the Dardanelles Strait in northwestern Turkey. Founded in 1960 and relocated to a purpose-built facility in 1984, the museum served for decades as the principal repository for artifacts excavated across the ancient region of Troas, including the world-famous site of Troy. Its collections were transferred in 2018 to the newly established Troy Museum (Troya Müzesi), situated near the archaeological site itself, and the former museum building now houses the Mehmet Akif Ersoy Provincial Public Library.

The museum's origins trace to 1936, when a collection of regional antiquities was assembled and housed in an old religious building at Zafer Meydanı. This structure was converted into a museum in 1959 and opened to the public in 1960. Nearly a quarter century later, in 1984, the institution moved to a newly constructed building on Atatürk Caddesi (100. Yıl Street), with coordinates 40°07′59″N 26°24′35″E. The museum operated from this address until 2018, when it was closed in preparation for the opening of the Troy Museum. Its archaeological holdings were transferred to the new facility, and by 2020 the former museum building had been repurposed as the Mehmet Akif Ersoy Provincial Public Library.

The museum's holdings encompassed material from numerous ancient sites across the Troas region. These included Troy itself, Assos, Alexandria Troas, Tenedos, and the temple of Apollo Smintheus at Chryse (Gülpınar), as well as the necropolis of Bozcaada and the tumulus of Dardanos. The collections ranged chronologically from prehistoric periods through the Roman era and into early modern times. Categories represented included stone and bone tools, terracotta figurines, marble sculptures, funary stelae, architectural elements, lamps, ornaments, jewelry, coins, and ceramics from Attic, Corinthian, Mycenaean, and Minyan production centers. A dedicated section displayed finds from renewed excavations at Troy conducted from 1988 onward by Manfred Korfmann, including hand-formed bowls, small lidded vessels, a 35 cm high water jug, and loom weights from Troy I; wheel-made pottery from Troy II; and Mycenaean and Minyan ceramics from Troy VI.

Among the museum's most significant individual pieces were two Greek sarcophagi with relief decoration: the Polyxena Sarcophagus from Gümüşçay, depicting the sacrifice of Polyxena, and a hunting-scene sarcophagus from Altıkulaç near Çanakkale. Other highlights included a colored sarcophagus from the Achaemenid Empire, a statue of the Roman Emperor Hadrian found in the odeon at Troy, and a terracotta statuette of Aphrodite, a copy of the Aphrodite of Knidos, from the Dardanos tumulus. The Dardanos finds also yielded bronze cremation vessels, jewelry, gems, gold finger rings, wreaths, diadems, lamps, textile fragments, and sandals. Prehistoric finds from Kumtepe and an athlete's honorific stele were also noteworthy. The outdoor exhibition area displayed sarcophagi, grave slabs, stelae, and amphorae from various Troas sites.

The museum's final and best-known location was the 1984 building on Atatürk Caddesi in Çanakkale's city center. This purpose-built structure replaced the inadequate converted church that had housed the collection since 1960. The building's design accommodated both indoor galleries and an outdoor exhibition space for large stone objects. Following the 2018 closure and transfer of collections to the Troy Museum, the structure underwent conversion to become the Mehmet Akif Ersoy Provincial Public Library, which opened in 2020.