Museum of the Ancient Orient

The Museum of the Ancient Orient occupies an 1883 building designed by Alexandre Vallaury for the Ottoman College of Fine Arts and forms part of the Istanbul Archaeology Museums complex. Since 1935 it has housed one of the world's most significant collections of Near Eastern antiquities, including Mesopotamian cuneiform tablets — among them fragments of some of the earliest known law codes — as well as Babylonian processional reliefs and Egyptian objects from the period of pharaonic rule over the Levant. The collection spans Sumerian, Akkadian, Babylonian, and Hittite civilizations, offering a rare condensed overview of the ancient world's cradle cultures. Open Tuesday through Sunday, 09:00–19:00, with full wheelchair access.