Alacahöyük Museum

The Alacahöyük Museum, run by the Çorum Museum Directorate, sits beside the Alacahöyük archaeological mound in the Alaca district of Çorum province, one of Anatolia's most important excavated settlements. The mound was occupied from the Chalcolithic period through the Hittite era, when it lay near the Hittite capital Hattusa, and into later Phrygian times. It is best known for a group of royal tombs dating to the Early Bronze Age, roughly 2850 to 2450 BC, which produced rich grave goods of gold and bronze, including jewelry and the distinctive Alacahöyük bronze standards depicting bulls and stags mounted on pedestals, objects whose exact ceremonial purpose is still debated by archaeologists. The site also yielded one of the earliest known iron artifacts in Anatolia, a dagger with a gold handle and an iron blade dated to around 2500 BC. While many of the most celebrated finds are now displayed at the Museum of Anatolian Civilizations in Ankara, the site museum presents material from the excavations alongside the history of the settlement itself.