Antalya Archaeological Museum

The Antalya Archaeological Museum, located on Konyaaltı Caddesi at the western edge of Antalya city centre, is consistently ranked among the five finest archaeological museums in Turkey and one of the most significant in the eastern Mediterranean. Opened in its current building in 1972 and expanded in subsequent decades, the museum houses artefacts spanning prehistoric times through the Byzantine period, with particular depth in the Hellenistic and Roman Imperial eras. The collection is organised across fourteen permanent galleries arranged roughly chronologically and thematically. The Prehistoric Hall contains Palaeolithic stone tools and animal bones from Karain Cave — Turkey's most important prehistoric site — followed by Neolithic and Chalcolithic ceramics and figurines. The Protohistoric Hall covers the Bronze and Iron Ages with finds from across the Antalya region, including Lycian funerary assemblages and material from the Elmalı area. The museum's most celebrated section is the Hall of Gods (Tanrılar Salonu), which houses an extraordinary collection of Roman-era divine statuary recovered principally from excavations at Perge. Colossal marble figures of Apollo, Artemis, Aphrodite, Tyche (Fortune), and the Anatolian deity Men are displayed with exceptional installation quality that allows close inspection from multiple angles. An adjacent hall presents a series of marble imperial portraits — figures identified as Hadrian, Trajan, and members of their courts — of remarkable sculptural quality. A separate hall is devoted to the sarcophagus collection: ornately carved marble coffins from Perge and the surrounding region, several approaching near-intact condition, with mythological narrative reliefs of considerable detail. The Coins Hall traces monetary history across more than a millennium, covering Lycian, Pamphylian, and Roman provincial issues. Ethnographic halls on the upper floor present Ottoman and traditional Turkish material culture from the region. A dedicated children's interactive section makes the museum accessible to younger visitors. The museum has an on-site café and a quality bookshop stocking scholarly catalogues for the major regional sites.