The museum at Side is inside a Roman building — the Agora Bath, raised in the Roman period and altered over the centuries, which now holds the collection while keeping its own fabric. It stands in the middle of the ancient city, among the theatre, the agora and the monument of Vespasian, so a visit here folds into a walk through the ruins rather than standing apart from it.
The bath was uncovered in excavations in the 1950s, partly restored between 1959 and 1961 with three of its sections closed off, and opened as a museum in 1962 at a ceremony attended by Arif Müfid Mansel, who led the excavations at Side, and by Jale İnan. The objects found since digging began in 1947 form the core of the collection, which has grown with later discoveries and with pieces never shown before. The display areas were renewed under the ministry's Geleceğe Miras project, and one result is that inscriptions in Sidetic, the city's own script, can now be seen together for the first time.
Inside, themed cases run from the Late Bronze Age through the Roman and Byzantine periods. Terracotta figurines from the early settlement, and scales, weights and steelyards that record the city's trade, sit alongside statues of gods and goddesses from its public buildings, friezes on the theme of the marine thiasos, and carved architectural pieces showing the birth of Aphrodite. Sculpture from the South Stoa-Gymnasium and the Imperial Hall is shown with coins, ornaments, amphorae, a statue of Hermes, sarcophagi with Erotes, and bronze and marble figurines.
Much of the museum is outdoors. Entry is by a door on the east side, and from there a stone-paved court — understood to have been the second tepidarium of the baths — opens into a large garden that was once the courts of the gymnasium and palaestra. Their floors are laid with pieces of marble. Sarcophagi, columns, busts, torsos, inscriptions, statues and their bases, capitals, friezes, reliefs and stelae from the excavations at Side stand around the court and through the garden. The most important work here is the series of friezes on the north wall of the court, showing the mythological stories of Poseidon and the relationships of gods and goddesses with nature.
The ministry sets the collection against the city's own history: Side had a language with Luwian roots and a writing system of its own, monumental architecture, and a harbour opening to the Mediterranean. Archaeological evidence shows settlement from the eighth century BC, with some finds from the region traceable further back, to the Late Bronze Age.
Getting there
- Access
- The museum is inside the ancient city of Side, beside the theatre. Dolmuş from the centre of Manavgat reach Side easily, and from the entrance it is a ten to fifteen minute walk. There are car parks near the entrance to the ancient city. From Antalya the drive along the D400 takes about an hour.
When to go
- Climate
- Across Antalya as a whole, monthly mean temperatures run from 10.1 °C in January to 28.6 °C in July; the mean stays between 15 and 25 °C in April, May, October and November; rainfall is heaviest in December (251 mm) and lightest in August (4 mm). Long-term means for 1930-2025 from the Turkish State Meteorological Service (MGM).
