Guide
Alanya Museum opened in 1967 with works of the Bronze Age and of the Urartian, Phrygian and Lydian periods brought from the Museum of Anatolian Civilisations in Ankara. It grew and was enriched afterwards by material from the excavations in the region.
The museum has archaeological and ethnographic sections. One of the oldest pieces found around Alanya and displayed in the archaeological section is the Cebelireis Dağı inscription, written in Phoenician in the seventh century BC. Its most important work is a statue of Herakles — a figure with a dramatic story in myth — cast in bronze and dated to the second century AD, shown in a room of its own.
The archaeological collection holds bronze, marble, terracotta, glass and mosaic finds of the Archaic, Classical, Hellenistic, Roman and Byzantine periods, with a rich collection of ash chests and coins, and Turkish-Islamic works of the Seljuk and Ottoman periods.
The ethnographic section shows objects gathered from around Alanya that reflect the folk character of the region: Yörük kilims, striped sacks, saddlebags, clothing, embroidery, weapons, vessels of daily use, jewellery, manuscripts and writing sets, together with a reconstructed living room from an old Alanya house. There are also stone works of the Roman, Byzantine and Islamic periods in the museum garden.
