A visit to Antalya Müzesi / Antalya Archeological Museum

Antalya Archeological Museum is the most important museum in Turkey. What most people don’t know, me neither, is that Turkey is a land full of history and archaeological sites. Especially the Pamphylia regions in Anatolia are still nowadays a great place to find outstanding things

Back in the beginning of the 1900’s nobody really catalogued or did anything with the archeological treasures. Most of them were even brought out of country by italian archeologists, at the end of World War I, as Antalya was under Italian military occupation. To prevent this Süleyman Fikri Bey, the Sultan’s advisor, volunteered up from 1919 in order to collect them and keep them in the country. This was when the first idea of a museum, or exhibition place, came up. Three Years later, in 1922, they stored the treasures in the Alâeddin Mosque, up from 1937 in the Yivli Minare Mosque. As more and more treasures and statues and pieces came up the Antalya Arkeoloji Müzesi moved into its current building.

Currently there are about 5000 pieces exhibited, in 13 themed exhibition rooms inside, and one open-air area. As you can see in the Pictures as well, there is a themed area especially for Sarcophagi. Richer People bought them, as they were still alive, to be buried later in them. The Price compared then to now would be comparable to a german luxury limousine. In total there are about 30,000 artifacts in collection, a lot of them are coins, but also many statues. Soon the Museum will move to another Place in Antalya, with more Space.