Amasya Museum

Amasya Museum, also known as the Archaeological Museum of Amasya (Turkish: Amasya Müzesi or Amasya Arkeoloji Müzesi), is a national museum in Amasya, northern Turkey. Established in 1958, it holds nearly twenty-four thousand items spanning eleven historic civilizations, from the Early Bronze Age through the Ottoman period. The museum serves as the principal repository for archaeological and ethnographic materials from the Amasya region, an area of Anatolia with continuous settlement from prehistoric times.

The museum's origins trace to 1925, when a small depot was created in two rooms of the madrasa within the Sultan Bayezid II Complex to store a few archaeological artifacts and some Islamic-era mummies. Official establishment came by June 1958. As collections grew, the inventory moved in 1962 to the 13th-century Seljuk building at Gökmedrese Mosque. The museum relocated to its purpose-built modern premises on Mustafa Kemal Paşa Caddesi on March 22, 1977, and opened to the public on June 14, 1980, after chronological rearrangement of exhibits.

The museum's holdings comprise 5,574 archaeological and 17,287 ethnographic objects, plus 1,247 items for study purposes. The archaeological collection covers all periods from the Early Bronze Age (3500-2100 BC) through Hittite, Urartian, Phrygian, Scythian, Hellenistic, Roman, Byzantine, Ilkhanate, Seljuk, and Ottoman eras. Key excavation sources include Oluz Höyük, Doğantepe, Oymaağaç (Nerik), and Mahmatlar. The ethnographic collection documents Ottoman domestic life, craftsmanship, and material culture of the 19th century, with particular attention to regional Azerbaijani immigration during the Russo-Turkish War.

The most celebrated piece is the Amasya figurine, a bronze statuette of the Hittite storm god Teshub discovered at Doğantepe in the early 1960s. Other significant archaeological items include Roman and Byzantine amphoras from a shipwreck off Bafra, a Hellenistic relief of Dionysus and his son, a Roman torso of a priest, a Byzantine bronze sarcophagus, and the Aktarla sarcophagus. The museum also preserves a Roman mosaic depicting an apple tree, Late Byzantine wooden door leaves with figural decoration, and double-winged wooden doors from Gökmedrese Mosque and Mehmed Pasha Mosque. The numismatic collection spans Hellenistic to Ottoman coinage. The ethnographic section contains Ottoman astronomical instruments including wooden astrolabes, silver and enamelled pocket watches, nacre-inlay objects, weapons, ceramics, and decree documents bearing sultans' tughras. Six Ilkhanate-period mummies, transferred from two mosque graveyards in Amasya, are displayed inside the Tomb of Mesud I and constitute the most visited part of the museum.

The museum occupies a three-story modern building at Mustafa Kemal Paşa Caddesi 91 in central Amasya. The basement houses storerooms, laboratories, and service units. The ground floor contains a small exhibition room, kiosk, and lounge. Two large exhibition halls on the upper floor display archaeological and ethnographic collections in chronological order. The garden to the west serves as an open-air exhibition space for large stone artifacts, including Hittite gate lion statues, Hellenistic and Roman epigraphies, Ionic and Corinthian capitals, marble and limestone sarcophagi, milestones, Byzantine steles, and architectural elements from the Ilkhanate, Seljuk, and Ottoman periods. The Tomb of Mesud I, situated on the grounds, contains the Ilkhanate mummies.

The museum is located on Mustafa Kemal Paşa Caddesi in the city center of Amasya. It is open every day from 8:30 to 19:00 local time, closing at 17:00 during winter months. The admission fee is 5.00 Turkish lira. As a national museum under the Turkish Ministry of Culture, it functions as the primary public institution for accessing the region's archaeological heritage and ethnographic history.