In Turkey today, the material past lies very much at the center of possible futures. Following the foundation of the Turkish Republic, the state devoted the organization and presentation of material cultural heritage to the project of imagining a coherent nation. State officials implemented a nationwide ‘museumification’ process, which involved gathering and displaying antiquities from throughout the country at regional archaeology museums in order to construct a sense of shared past and future. Today, however, in the context of intense neoliberal restructuring, the Turkish government is calling on heritage to play a different role in society. Archaeological sites and antiquities, including those recovered through high profile cases of repatriation, are now recognized as a significant draw for tourism. Heritage has become an asset to be invested and managed. To that end, as crowds flock to take in Turkey’s history and culture, the Turkish government is introducing more commercial activities and services at museums and archaeological sites. The Ministry of Culture and Tourism has enthusiastically adopted the perceived link between museums, cultural tourism, and ever expanding revenues. With hundreds of millions of euros potentially at stake, the Ministry is now overseeing the construction and renovation of dozens of museums across the country, including “archaeological site museums,” to draw crowds and raise money. The Ministry intends for new archaeological site museums to contribute to the transformation of archaeological sites into tourism products. Nowhere are the expectations for what a site should look like and what it should yield higher than at Troy, one of the most famous archaeological sites in the world. Despite Troy’s storied history, the site remains lacking in tourism infrastructure. Located in northwestern-Anatolia, Troy is one of many archaeological and historical sites in the Troas Region and there has long been the sense that the region has great potential for archaeological tourism development. To harness that potential, the Ministry of Culture and Tourism is moving the region’s antiquities to a new site museum under construction at Troy. Trading on the site’s notoriety, the Troy museum will now speak for the entire region. In response to these efforts at tourism and branding, this paper asks: how does the monetization of museums impact the way material culture is collected, organized and used? It is a question with particular salience in Turkey but that resonates throughout societies looking to make heritage profitable.