Çorum Museum

Merkez Museum October 2010

The Çorum Museum is an institution that preserves and displays the rich archaeological heritage of a region situated at the very heart of the core area of Hittite culture and civilization. The process began when Hattuşa-Boğazköy, the Hittite capital, was first introduced to the world in 1834, and the site of Alacahöyük in 1835, by European travellers visiting Anatolia. From that point on, Çorum drew attention for its historical and archaeological wealth. As the sensational and successful results of Alacahöyük, Hattuşa-Boğazköy and other excavation sites came to light, efforts to gather together the artefacts scattered across this richly endowed Çorum and to establish a museum began in 1937.

History

As tourism activity increased owing to the importance of Boğazköy-Hattuşa and Alacahöyük, the first official application to establish a museum was made in 1962, but it did not yield a positive outcome.

Despite this, the idea of founding a museum in Çorum was kept alive. The “Association for Founding the Çorum Hittite Museum and Promoting Tourism” and its chairman, Dr. Kemal Terlemezoğlu (surgeon), together with the association’s secretary Talat Ceritoğlu, continued their efforts on this matter. Finally, in a letter dated 1 September 1965 sent by the Ministry of National Education to the provincial authorities, it was stated that establishing a museum in Çorum had been deemed appropriate and that a site should be found for it.

Construction of the museum, to be built on a 3,000 m² plot set aside for the new museum from the grounds of the Çorum Boys’ Vocational Institute, began in 1966 and was completed in 1968. The first museum, which displayed finds from sites such as Alacahöyük, Boğazköy-Hattuşa, Pazarlı and Kuşsaray, opened on 13 October 1968.

Having served for 33 years from 1968 onwards, the museum building became unable to meet demand owing to the archaeological excavations that had gained momentum in Çorum in recent years and the sheer quantity of artefacts recovered. As a result, the building next to the Çorum Industrial Vocational High School, dating to AH 1332 and serving since its construction successively as a hospital, an agricultural school and a higher vocational school of mechanics, was transferred from the Ministry of National Education in 1986 to be put into use as the new Çorum Museum building. After suffering a fire in 1988, the building began to be restored in 1989 to be used as the museum’s service building. Once the restoration work was completed, the new Çorum Museum opened to visitors on 11 March 2003.

Architecture and Registration

The new museum building, registered by the High Council of Immovable Antiquities and Monuments of the Ministry of Culture as an “Immovable Cultural Asset Requiring Protection,” contains Archaeological and Ethnographic exhibition halls, which have been arranged independently of one another. Dating from the late Ottoman period and having housed many different institutions, the structure is, in this respect, worthy of protection both for the collection it holds and for its own architectural value.

Archaeology Hall

The Archaeological artefact hall is arranged over four floors. On its first floor, a chronological display begins with Chalcolithic Age artefacts found in the Alacahöyük, Kuşsaray and Büyük Güllücek excavations. This hall also displays Early Bronze Age finds from the Alacahöyük excavations, along with artefacts of the same period acquired by the museum through purchase. On this floor, the “L” Tomb, one of the Early Bronze Age Alacahöyük prince and princess tombs, is exhibited as a faithful reconstruction of the original. Following this section, the Hittite-period artefacts uncovered in archaeological excavations within the boundaries of Çorum province (Boğazköy-Hattuşa, Alacahöyük, Yörüklü Hüseyindede) are displayed together with the architectural cross-section of the structures uncovered at Boğazköy-Hattuşa, accompanied by storage items, photographs and information panels. On the same floor, two relief-decorated vases found in the Yörüklü excavation and dated to the Old Hittite period are exhibited. One of them has four friezes, like the relief-decorated vase from Çankırı-İnandık, while the other is smaller and bears a single relief frieze on its neck. Also exhibited on this floor is the unique bronze sword inscribed in cuneiform that belonged to the Hittite king Tudhaliya II (1430 BC), a piece that holds a special place in the museum’s collection.

The 2nd floor, which begins with Hittite written documents (cuneiform tablets), is followed by the clay seal-impressed bullae found as an archive in the Boğazköy-Hattuşa excavations and, chronologically, by the cuneiform tablets and seal-impressed bullae from the Ortaköy-Şapinuva excavation. Alongside the small finds from the Ortaköy-Şapinuva excavation, seals belonging to the Hittite period and its contemporaries are also exhibited on this floor.

The 3rd floor, which begins with the display of ceramic artefacts from Ortaköy-Şapinuva, presents the Phrygian-period finds uncovered in the Pazarlı excavation, followed by finds of the same period from Boğazköy-Hattuşa and Alacahöyük. The chronological display on this floor concludes with ceramic artefacts of the Hellenistic, Galatian and Roman periods. In addition, the Çorum Museum Coin collection — comprising coins beginning with the Hellenistic period and continuing through the Roman period and that era’s city coins, along with Byzantine and Islamic-period coins — is also exhibited on this floor.

The museum display ends with the 4th floor, where Roman-period glass artefacts, gold and silver ornaments, figurines and oil lamps, as well as Byzantine-period artefacts, are exhibited. While the archaeology section of the Çorum Museum has been opened to display, work on arranging the Ethnographic hall and the garden is still ongoing.

The sites and excavation centres from which the artefacts displayed in the museum originate can be visited by those who wish to see the region’s Hittite heritage in situ. Among the other points located nearby and within the same archaeological context are the Boğazköy Museum, the Alacahöyük Museum, the Hittite capital Hattuşaş and the site of Alacahöyük, as well as Şapinuva.

ℹ️ This article has been enriched with additional historical context and editing over the original archive content.