Gordion Museum (on-site at archaeological site)

The Gordion Museum (Gordion Müzesi) is an on-site archaeological museum at the ancient Phrygian capital of Gordion, located approximately 95 kilometres southwest of Ankara near Yassıhöyük village in Polatlı district. Following a major renovation funded jointly by Turkish state museums and the University of Pennsylvania — which has excavated Gordion continuously since 1950 — the museum reopened in 2012 in a purpose-built facility adjacent to the site entrance. Museum admission is included in the combined Gordion site ticket. The permanent collection is organised across four thematic sections. The opening gallery covers Gordion's archaeological history from the Early Bronze Age through the Phrygian, Persian, Hellenistic, and Roman periods, placing the site's development in its broader Anatolian context with maps, chronological charts, and explanatory panels. The centrepiece hall presents the finds from the Great Tumulus (Büyük Tümülüs): the original wooden furniture recovered from the sealed royal burial chamber — tables, serving stands, and inlaid screens in juniper and boxwood — dated dendrochronologically to approximately 740 BC. This collection represents some of the oldest surviving wooden objects in the world. The geometric inlay decoration on the furniture surfaces is of exceptional artistic quality and preserves techniques otherwise undocumented in the Iron Age Aegean world. Over 160 bronze cauldrons, fibulae, and serving vessels from the funeral feast are displayed alongside the furniture. A third section covers the Phrygian destruction level of approximately 800 BC, where a catastrophic fire froze the citadel's contents: preserved food remains, textiles, and ceramics provide an extraordinary snapshot of Phrygian court life. A final room addresses Alexander the Great's 333 BC passage through Gordion and the city's later Hellenistic and Roman phases. All major labels are bilingual in Turkish and English.