The Germanicia mosaics, shown today as an open-air museum in the Dulkadiroğlu district in the centre of Kahramanmaraş, are the floors of the ancient city — thought to have belonged to hillside villas — and date from the 4th and 5th centuries AD. They came to light through work begun after a report of illicit digging in August 2007, and the mosaic floors found at a number of points across the district made it clear that this was Germanicia.
Maraş came under Roman rule in 64 BC and was named in honour of the emperor Gaius Caesar Augustus Germanicus — Caligula — becoming Kaiseria Germanicia. The Latin, Greek and Arabic sources of the period place the mosaics in the late Roman and early Byzantine periods, and what they show, broadly, is the political, social, cultural and economic life of the city at that time.
The density of tesserae in the mosaic layers allowed fine detail in the motifs. The images include plant and geometric ornament, scenes drawn from daily life, and compositions showing the architecture of the period. Mythology is largely absent here: what these floors depict is local life. Their careful workmanship, the patterning of their scenes and the range of their subjects and iconography give them a character of their own.
The site is inside the city, so taxis and dolmuş reach it easily.
Getting there
- Access
- The site is inside the city, so taxis and dolmuş reach it easily.
When to go
- Climate
- Across Kahramanmaraş as a whole, monthly mean temperatures run from 4.9 °C in January to 28.5 °C in August; the mean stays between 15 and 25 °C in April, May, June, September and October; rainfall is heaviest in December (131 mm) and lightest in August (2 mm). Long-term means for 1930-2025 from the Turkish State Meteorological Service (MGM).
Visiting hours
- Hours
- 08:00 - 17:00
