Museum of Anatolian Civilizations

The Museum of Anatolian Civilizations houses original works from Anatolia's many cultures, from the Paleolithic onwards. It occupies two Ottoman buildings, the Mahmutpaşa Bedesten and the Kurşunlu Han, restored and renewed in 2014. Virtual tours, animations and replicas of T-shaped pillars from Göbeklitepe help make the journey through history come alive.

The museum's story begins in 1921, when Atatürk proposed a Hittite museum in the capital and Hittite objects were collected from across the country. The cultural director of the time, Galip Bey, began by using the Akkale tower of Ankara Castle and a Roman bath, next to the temple of Augustus. When space ran short, restoration of the disused bedesten and han began in 1938 and ended in 1968, though the central hall of the bedesten opened in 1943.

Named the continent's Museum of the Year in 1997, it is among the world's notable museums for its distinctive collections. The objects are arranged in chronological sections: the upper hall covers the Paleolithic, Chalcolithic, Early Bronze Age, Assyrian Trade Colonies, Old Hittite and Hittite Empire, Phrygian Kingdom, Late Hittite Kingdom and Urartu, and the lower hall covers Ankara through the ages and the Classical world.