In this land, which forms a bridge between East and West, which held a prominent position at various stages of the human history and which was the cradle of numerous civilizations, Çorum and its vicinity lead the regions which sustain thousands of year long native cultural and artistic traditions of Anatolia. The Çorum province which was the scene of important civilizations and cultures in history as well as in the pre-historic ages, covers a considerably large area reaching from northern part of Central Anatolia to the inner parts of the Central Black Sea Region. Museum activities in Çorum first started in 1937 as a local conciousness of carrying out research and collecting historical material started to emerge. The findings of the Alacahöyük excavations which were initiated in 1935 with a directive from Atatürk greatly contributed to this rising local interest in arcaeology and historical heritages.
Museums of Çorum serve as a single administrative unit with two local museums at the center and three at other locations connected to historical sites. As the need for a museum became pressing with the Alacahöyük excavations, the Alacahöyük Museum was initiated in 1940 which has the distinction of being the first local museum, starting the tradition of excavation site museums. In later years Boğazköy Museum at the Hattusas, the capital of Hittites was inaugated on 12 September 1966 and Çorum Museum on 13 October 1968.
Çorum Museum
The museum which is located at the city center, near the Monument of the Martyrs was inaugurated on 13 October 1968. There are four inter- connecting exhibition halls in the single storey building as well as material storage area and a photography laboratory.
Material originating from the mounds of Alacahöyük, Boğazköy, Ortaköy, Eskiyapar, Pazarlı, Kuşsaray and Alişar Höyük which are supplemented with purchased works form the core of the Çorum Museum. The museum also has ethnographical pieces.
First Hall and the Corridor:
Coins, ceramics, glass perfume cups and lachrymatories, figurines and stauettes, offering cups, steles, sacrophagi and column capitals and jewelery from Hellenistic, Roman and Byzantine periods are exhibited in typological order.
Second Hall:
The exhibition consists of beak headed jugs from the Hittite and Phrygian periods, bath basin from the Hittite period, flask shaped cup, vases, fruit stands, rythones, moulds, crucibles, cap-shaped discs and seals from the Hittite and Phrygian periods and painted cups dated to the Phrygian period and multi-colored baked earth rel,efed wall panels.
In the corridor which connects the halls, ceramics of varying forms from Chalcolithic and Old Bronze Ages, Idols, stone and bronze hand axes and spear heads and cups with Alişar origin are displayed.
Third and Fourth Halls:
There are rugs and kilims reflecting the special characteristics of the Çorum region, garments, jewelery and ornaments for women and weapons, wood and metal objects and manuscript form religious books from the Seljuk and Ottoman periods.
Garden:
Fountain with a bull figure, statues from the Roman and Byzantine periods, tomb stelers and milling stones, inscriptions and tomb stones from Seljuk and Ottoman periods are on display.
According to 1997 statistics there are 12.337 items at the museum. 3408 of these are arcaeological material while there are 2360 etnographic pieces, 3169 coins, 3278 tablets, 110 seals and seal inscriptions and 12 religious books in manuscript form.
The New Çorum Museum Building (Former Institute of Higher Education for Mechanical Engineering)
The new Çorum Museum Service Building which is being restored, is located at the provincial center, about 400 meters to the east of the Old Museum Building. It is dated from H.1332 and has served various purposes since then. The building which for many years housed a Hospital, Agricultural School, Arts and Crafts School and a High School has three storeys including the basement. It was struck by fire on 14.06.1989 and restoration work, which is still underway, was started in 1989 to convert it to the New Museum Building.
Alacahöyük Museum
The Alacahöyük Museum which operates under the administration of the Çorum Museum is located in the Alacahöyk village of the Alaca District and is 45 km from Çorum. The first local museum in Alacahöyük was opened to public in 1940 and then moved to its new premises in 1982. The museum building has two storeys with Hamit Zübeyr Koşar and Remzi Oğuz Arık halls on the second floor. In these halls, which are named after the leaders of the excavation teams, the material obtained from Alacahöyük and Pazarlı excavations are displayed.
At the entrance hall, the first excavation materials, hand made ceramics from the Chalcolithic period and photograps showing the moment of first discovery of the 13 royal graves as well as baked earth objects are on display. In the large wall cases of the second hall, there are earthen beak sprouted jugs, cups and plates, brazeries, and flask shaped cups from the Hittite period.
In the central cases bronze pins, ornamental objects made of bones, moulds, animal figurines and two tablets with hierographic inscriptions from the Old Bronze and Hittite periods are exhibited. Furthermore, in the same hall in a single case reserved for the Phrygian period baked earth reliefed wall tablets, painted cups and a pheasant shape rython are on display
At the lower floor which is named the Mahmut Akok hall and where ethmographic material is exhibited there are rugs and kilims particular to the region, wooden agricultural tools, loom and weapons from the Ottoman period including boring and cutting weapons and fire arms.
According to the 1997 statistics the museum collection has a total of 3233 pieces 2771 of which are arhaeological works, 350 are etnographical material and 112 are coins.
Boğazköy Museum
Boğazköy Museum which also operates as annexed to the Çorum Museum is located at the Boğazkale District center at a distance of 82 km southwest of Çorum. The museum was inaugurated on 12 september 1966 and is a local museum where material from Boğazköy (Hattusas) and those obtained from the vicinity are stored and displayed. Works from Chalcolithic, Old Bronze, Hittite, Phrygian, Roman and Byzantine periods are exhibited at the museum where the majority of the material consists of Hittite origined works. At the entrance hall there is map showing the historical site of Hattusas and a chronolgical table and the casted relief of the King's gate, the relief of the Hittite king Tuthalia IV and across from them a stone setele with hieoglyph inscription.
In the first hall opening from the enterance hall there are cases holding displays of baked earth works from Calcolithic, Old Bronze and Assyrian Trade Colonies periods, and in the section where this hall joins the big hall, there is the relief of Goddess Ishar brought from Yazılıkaya.
In the second hall the display is in chronological order and there are cases which exhibit large scale beak sprouted jugs from the period of Assyrian Trade Colonies and Old Hittite period and photograps showing the position and locations of their discovery. The cases which follow hold baked earth and stone material from the Old Hittite and Hittite Empire periods, painted ceramic cups and fibulas from the Phrygian period, baked earth and glass works from the Roman period and bronze material from a church which is dated to the Byzantine period. In the cases at the center there are tablets with hierograpy inscriptions, seal stamped earthen annals, cylindrical and stamp seals, bronze axes, pins, tools for stone masonary and moulds, an ivory dancing goddess statue, a trio of goddesses, a pendants and reliefed ceramic pieces, again from the Hittite period. Between the cases there are large scale jugs and reliefed orthostadts
According to the 1997 statistics the museum collection has a total of 12074 pieces 11735 of which are archaeological works, 166 etnographical material and 173 are coins.