The Amisos Treasure
Sixty-four gold and glass pieces from a Pontic royal tomb found by accident in 1995, Turkey's second most valuable hoard.
𐰇𐱅𐰚𐰤 — CC BY-SA 4.0 · Cobija — CC BY-SA 4.0 · Cobija — CC BY-SA 4.0 · Cobija — CC BY-SA 4.0
In November 1995 a labourer digging foundations on Amisos Hill above Samsun broke through into a burial chamber that had been sealed for two thousand years. What came out, sixty-four pieces of gold, glass and marble belonging to the royal house of Pontus, the oldest from the fourth century BC and the gold from the first, is now ranked the second most valuable treasure ever found in Turkey, after the Lydian hoard of Karun. The jewellery of a man, a woman and a small girl sits together in one case, and that single room justifies the ticket. The museum itself is a comeback story. The old building shut in 2016 and its replacement did not open until March 2024: a new block on Atatürk Bulvarı by the old fairground in the heart of the city, its facade rippling like Black Sea swell, some 22,000 square metres under one roof, billed as the largest museum in Turkey's Black Sea region. Some seven thousand objects run in date order from the Neolithic to Atatürk's landing at Samsun in 1919, with short, readable labels in Turkish and English. After the gold, the Roman Amisos mosaic: fifty-six square metres unearthed in 1958, showing Achilles receiving his armour from his mother Thetis, framed by the four seasons and sea creatures, on public display in full for the first time here. Do not skip the İkiztepe skulls either, five thousand years old and bearing the marks of skull surgery their owners survived. The ethnographic rooms and the coin cabinet (around 5,800 pieces) are quieter fare and can be walked through briskly. For families it is an easy visit: level floors, lifts, a small children's museum and a café. The Black Sea rains without warning even in August, and this is where you retreat when the sky turns. An hour and a half is enough. Admission is 5 EUR for foreign visitors and free under eight.
Sixty-four gold and glass pieces from a Pontic royal tomb found by accident in 1995, Turkey's second most valuable hoard.
A 56-square-metre Roman floor shown whole for the first time, with the four seasons in its corners.
Five-thousand-year-old skulls bearing the marks of Bronze Age head surgery their owners survived.
Atatürk Bulvarı 99, Liman Mahallesi, İlkadım
Samsun Clock TowerThe tower standing in Saathane Square today is barely a quarter of a century old18 minutes walk4.5
Amisos HillOn 28 November 1995, road-building machinery on Baruthane hill west of Samsun br20 minutes walk4.2
Tobacco PierEvery Turkish schoolchild learns what happened on this exact spot: on the mornin21 minutes walk4.7
Gazi MuseumThe Turkish Republic was, in a sense, conceived in a modest brick-and-timber hot24 minutes walk4.8
Batı Park and Amazon VillageTwo colossal concrete lions crouch on artificial hillocks, and between them an A25 minutes walk4.7If you have ninety minutes, yes: the treasure room and the mosaic alone are worth the stop, and the museum sits in the city centre a few steps off the coastal road, so the detour is short. If time is genuinely tight, do the archaeology hall on the ground floor and skip the ethnographic section.
The Gazi Museum is the old hotel where Atatürk stayed in 1919, a small house museum about the War of Independence you finish in half an hour. Samsun Museum is a large archaeology museum spanning seven thousand years; if you have to pick one with children, pick this.