The Hatay Archaeological Museum is in Antakya. Its new building, opened on 28 December 2014, gave it the largest mosaic display area in the world.
The works displayed belong to the Hittite, Hellenistic, Roman and Byzantine periods and come from Harbiye, Antakya, Atçana, Seleucia Pieria and İskenderun. Most were found in the excavations carried out between 1932 and 1939.
Those excavations were run by the Committee for the Excavation of Antioch and its Vicinity, formed by Princeton University, and the works recovered were dispersed to several countries, where they are kept or displayed in various museums; Princeton University, a private research university in New Jersey, holds rich mosaic works in its own art museum.
Construction of the museum began in 1934, prompted by the excavations begun at Antakya and its surroundings in 1932 and by the proposal of the French archaeologist Claude Prost; at the time this made it the second largest archaeological museum in the world. The building was finished in 1938, and a year later Hatay became a province of the Turkish republic. The museum opened to visitors on 23 July 1948 and was revised in 1975.
Work on the new building began in 2011. It has 32,754 square metres of covered space, 10,700 of them given over to display, and the exhibits are arranged under nine themes covering the cultures, mosaics and history of different periods.
The museum was partly damaged in the Gaziantep–Kahramanmaraş earthquakes of 2023, and under measures taken by the Ministry of Culture and Tourism it has been placed under watch with additional security staff and cameras.
When to go
- Climate
- Across Hatay as a whole, monthly mean temperatures run from 8.1 °C in January to 27.9 °C in August; the mean stays between 15 and 25 °C in April, May, June and October; rainfall is heaviest in January (197 mm) and lightest in July (16 mm). Long-term means for 1940-2025 from the Turkish State Meteorological Service (MGM).
Visiting hours
- Hours
- 08:30 - 17:00
