Archaeologists working at the ancient city of Troy in northwestern Türkiye have recovered a bone flute thought to be around 2,800 years old, which Culture and Tourism Minister Mehmet Nuri Ersoy said is the first musical instrument ever found at the site in more than 160 years of excavation.
Ersoy announced the discovery on Thursday on his social media account, together with a second find from this year’s season: a human-shaped idol head estimated to be about 4,500 years old. Both objects were unearthed during the 2026 excavation season, carried out under the ministry’s "Geleceğe Miras" (Heritage for the Future) programme, which funds year-round digs at major archaeological sites.
A first for one of the world’s most famous sites
According to the ministry, the flute dates to the Archaic period, roughly 750 to 480 BC, and was found in the fill of an Archaic-era settlement layer. Its head section is still attached to the body of the instrument.
Ersoy described the flute as "the first and only musical instrument" found in the history of the Troy excavations, saying it provides direct archaeological evidence of the city’s musical culture. In the ancient Greek world, music was closely tied to religious ritual and social life, and some wind instruments were associated with the cult of Dionysus.
The idol head was discovered near the city gate of Troy II, a settlement phase dated to around 2500 BC in the Early Bronze Age. The minister said it would help researchers understand the symbolic world of the period and cultural interaction across western Anatolia.
Ten cities on one hill
Troy lies on Hisarlık Hill, about 30 kilometres south of the city of Çanakkale near the Dardanelles, within the limits of Tevfikiye village. Excavations began in the 1870s under the German businessman Heinrich Schliemann, who set out to find the city of Homer’s Iliad, and the site’s settlement history is now known to stretch from the early third millennium BC to the 13th century AD, across ten main layers.
The ancient city has been a UNESCO World Heritage Site since 1998 and is one of Türkiye’s best-known archaeological destinations, often combined with visits to the Gallipoli battlefields on the opposite side of the strait. The nearby Troy Museum, opened in 2018, displays finds from the site and the surrounding region.
The ministry did not say when or where the new finds would go on public display, only that they would be studied and conserved. The announcement comes as the government continues to promote heritage tourism, including the opening of five new museums at Topkapı Palace this week. Visitors planning trips to sites such as Troy should also note the new museum entry fees announced for 2027, and newcomers can find practical tips in our moving to Türkiye checklist.
Sources
- Troya Antik Kenti’nde 160 yıllık kazı tarihinde ilk müzik aleti keşfedildi (Cumhuriyet / AA)
- Troya’da bir ilk yaşandı. 160 yıllık kazı tarihinde heyecanlandıran keşif (NTV)
Photo: Zeki Okur / Unsplash License, via Unsplash
