Chez Galip Hair Museum
The Chez Galip Hair Museum is an eccentric underground museum in Avanos, Cappadocia, Turkey, housed in the cave cellar beneath the workshop of master potter Galip Körükçü. Founded in 1979, it displays a vast collection of hair samples donated by female visitors from around the world, reportedly numbering over 16,000 samples, each accompanied by the donor’s name and address written on a small piece of paper. The museum is listed in the Guinness World Records as the largest collection of human hair samples on display.
At a glance
- Type
- Novelty / curiosity museum, underground cave gallery
- Period
- Founded 1979 by Galip Körükçü
- Style
- Cave interior carved from Cappadocian tuff
- Location
- Avanos, Nevşehir Province, Cappadocia, Turkey
- Coordinates
- 38.6945° N, 34.8103° E
Overview
Chez Galip occupies the cave workshop of one of Avanos’s most celebrated potters, Galip Körükçü, whose red-clay ceramics draw on a tradition extending back thousands of years in this region of central Anatolia. The hair museum grew organically below the pottery studio as an idiosyncratic personal project that has since attracted worldwide media attention. Visitors are invited to add their own hair sample to the collection, continuing a tradition that began when a departing female friend of Galip left a lock of her hair as a keepsake.
History
The collection began in 1979 when a woman leaving Avanos gave Galip a lock of her hair as a memento of their friendship. The gesture resonated and Galip began asking subsequent female visitors to do the same, attaching their contact details to each sample. Over four decades the cave walls and ceiling became progressively covered with bundles of hair accompanied by tens of thousands of name slips. The collection gained international recognition after it was entered in the Guinness World Records, drawing curious visitors from across the globe to the otherwise quiet pottery town of Avanos.
What you see
The museum occupies a low-ceilinged cave room reached through the working pottery studio on Avanos’s main street, itself worth visiting for its demonstration of traditional red-clay wheel-throwing techniques using clay from the Kızılırmak River. The cave walls and ceiling are densely covered with hair samples of every colour and length, each tagged with handwritten name slips, postcards, and photographs. The effect is simultaneously intimate and overwhelming, a palimpsest of personal connections accumulated over more than forty years. Twice a year Galip reportedly selects ten lucky donors by random draw and invites them back to Avanos for a pottery week.
Cultural significance
The Chez Galip Hair Museum occupies an unusual position at the intersection of folk art, personal archive, and performance piece, representing a decades-long sustained act of collecting human connection. It sits within the broader heritage of Avanos, one of the oldest continuously inhabited pottery towns in the world, where Hittite-era ceramic traditions have been maintained into the present day. As a Guinness record holder, it has put Cappadocia’s craft culture on the map for visitors who might otherwise bypass the town en route to the region’s more famous rock-cut churches and underground cities.
Practical information
- Address
- Avanos, Nevşehir Province, Cappadocia, Turkey
- Opening hours
- Generally open during pottery studio hours; check with the studio directly
- Admission
- Free entry to the museum; pottery studio and shop on site
Getting there
Avanos is located approximately 10 km north-east of Göreme, the main tourist hub of Cappadocia. Regular dolmuş (minibus) services connect Avanos to Göreme, Ürgüp, and Nevşehir. From Nevşehir airport or Kayseri airport, organised Cappadocia tours typically include Avanos. The pottery studio is on the main street of Avanos town centre, easily walkable from the bus stop.