Muğla Museum opened in 1994 in a former prison building, restored for the purpose. Three main sections and an art gallery are gathered around a courtyard filled with ancient remains and statues. The first natural history museum in Türkiye is here.
The Turolian Park natural history section is the most unusual part of the museum. It shows fossils of animals and plants that lived five to nine million years ago, found in three fossil beds during excavations at Kaklıcatepe near the village of Özlüce at the end of 1992. The digs produced fossils of giraffes, bovids, rhinoceroses, proboscideans, pigs, horses and carnivores, together with a great many plant fossils. These were creatures that lived and died out across a wide area reaching from East Asia to Spain; the period is called the Turolian because fossils of its animals were first found in the Teruel basin in Spain.
In the archaeological section most of the material comes from the excavations at the ancient city of Stratonikeia in the Yatağan district, with finds from Lagina at Yatağan and from the ancient city of Cedrae on Sedir Island shown here as well.
The third section holds clothing and objects of daily use from various parts of Muğla and from various periods.
When to go
- Climate
- Across Muğla as a whole, monthly mean temperatures run from 10.8 °C in January to 27.6 °C in August; the mean stays between 15 and 25 °C in April, May, June, September, October and November; rainfall is heaviest in December (207 mm) and lightest in August (4 mm). Long-term means for 2001-2025 from the Turkish State Meteorological Service (MGM).
Visiting hours
- Hours
- 08:30 - 17:30, closed Monday
