Kütahya's archaeological museum occupies a medrese next to the Ulu Cami in the Börekçiler quarter of the city centre, the building known both as the medrese of Umur bin Savcı and as the Vacidiye medrese. It was built in 1314 by Umur bin Savcı, one of the beys of Germiyan, and the museum was founded there in 1965 as the collection gathered in it grew.
Built of cut stone, the medrese shows the character of Seljuk art at its entrance. Its doorways are domed, and nine small rooms open onto the central space.
The cases hold material running from the late Miocene onward, and from the Palaeolithic, Chalcolithic and Early Bronze Age through the Hittite, Phrygian, Hellenistic, Roman, Byzantine, Seljuk and Ottoman periods. Among the valuable pieces are painted Late Chalcolithic ceramics brought from Hacılar in Burdur, along with fossils and material of the Early Bronze Age and the Phrygian period. Phrygian toys are shown here, with figures of the mother goddess Cybele, of priests, of a satyr and of Hekate.
Among the most valued works is the Amazon sarcophagus, found in a rescue excavation at Aizanoi near Çavdarhisar and carved in high relief. Its sides carry the battles between the Greeks and the Amazons, and it is among the best preserved of the few Amazon sarcophagi known. The museum also holds Hellenistic and Roman ceramics, oil lamps and glass.
Storage jars, bone tools and roof tiles from the rescue excavation at Seyitömer Höyük have an important place in the collection, as do the Hittite finds recovered by the museum in the rescue excavation at Ağızören. Roman gravestones draw a good deal of interest, and the marble ossuaries of the Roman imperial period, in which the ashes of the dead were kept, are among the important finds here.
When to go
- Climate
- Across Kütahya as a whole, monthly mean temperatures run from 0.5 °C in January to 20.9 °C in August; the mean stays between 15 and 25 °C in June, July, August and September; rainfall is heaviest in December (76 mm) and lightest in August (18 mm). Long-term means for 1929-2025 from the Turkish State Meteorological Service (MGM).
Visiting hours
- Hours
- 08:30 - 17:30
