Guide
The Niğde Museum lays out the archaeology of central Anatolia in chronological order across six halls, and most of what is in them came out of excavations in the region.
Hall I is the Köşk Höyük hall. It holds obsidian tools from the Neolithic sites of Pınarbaşı Höyük, Köşk Höyük, Tepecik Höyük and the Kaletepe obsidian workshop, together with the finds that make Köşk Höyük a key Neolithic and Chalcolithic site: unique objects, grave goods, figurines of gods and goddesses, an anthropomorphic vase, and a full-scale reconstruction of a Chalcolithic house the museum dates to 4883 BC.
Hall II is about metal. One large case shows Early Bronze Age finds belonging to miners from the excavations at Goltepe Höyük at Celaller village in Çamardı, with a reconstruction of the gallery entrance of the ancient tin mine at Kestel opposite the mound, alongside material from Acemhöyük and from Darboğaz near Ulukışla. The second large case holds the palace finds from Acemhöyük — ancient Purushanda, a major centre of the Assyrian trading colonies.
Hall III covers the Late Hittite and Phrygian first millennium BC: storm and fertility god stelae from the Nahita and Tuvanuva kingdoms that emerged after the fall of the Hittite empire, inscriptions in Hittite hieroglyphic, finds from the Kaynarca tumulus, Phrygian pottery, and the Gollüdag Lion. Hall IV takes the Hellenistic, Roman and Byzantine periods, with finds from Tepebaglari, Porsuk Höyük and Acemhöyük, terracotta and glass, seal impressions, Roman figurines and Byzantine works, and — in its second part — sculpture and grave stelae of the 2nd century AD from Tyana.
Hall V has two halves and is the one people remember. The coin section explains minting technique and then runs chronologically through Greek, Hellenistic, Roman, Byzantine and Islamic-Ottoman coinage, with a Seljuk silver hoard and the Tepebaglari hoard of the Cappadocian kingdom. The mummy section holds the 10th-century 'nun mummy' found in the Ihlara valley in Aksaray and four infant mummies of the 13th century from the Çanlı Kilise.
Hall VI is ethnographic: weapons, manuscripts, writing sets, lighting equipment, carpets, kilims, finials, jewellery, Ilkhanid-period works and a tray belonging to the Qajar Turks, with a traditional seating corner set up in the hall.
