Hatay Archaeology Museum

The Hatay Archaeology Museum (Turkish: Hatay Arkeoloji Müzesi) is an archaeology museum in Antakya, the principal city of Hatay Province in southern Turkey. Renowned for possessing one of the world's largest and most significant collections of Roman and Byzantine mosaics, the institution documents the region's archaeological heritage from the Paleolithic period through the Islamic era. The museum occupies a purpose-built facility on the northern outskirts of Antakya, having relocated from its original 1938 building to a substantially larger complex that opened in 2014.

Construction of the original museum began in 1934 on the recommendation of the French archaeologist and antiquities inspector Claude M. Prost, with architectural direction by Michel Ecocherde. The building was completed in 1938, but Hatay's unification with Turkey in 1939 delayed the transfer of collections from storage. The museum finally opened to the public on 23 July 1948, timed to coincide with Hatay Liberation Day. By the 1960s, the growing collection necessitated expansion, and an annex was added, opening in 1973 after four years of construction, increasing exhibition rooms from five to eight. The museum was renovated and reopened in 1975. In 2011, construction began on a new building at the northern edge of the city, which opened on 28 December 2014. This relocation proved controversial when newspapers reported that at least ten mosaics had been improperly restored, allegedly shattered during the move and incorrectly reassembled. Restoration work was suspended in 2014-2015 after further botched treatments drew public attention through local media. The museum sustained damage during the 2023 Turkey-Syria earthquake.

The museum's holdings span from the Paleolithic period to the present day, with particular depth in Roman and Byzantine material. The collection encompasses artifacts from prehistoric, Assyrian, Hittite, and Mittani periods recovered from tells in the Amik plain, including Tell Cüdeyde, Tell Tayinat, Dehep, and Çatal Höyük (distinct from the better-known site near Konya). Excavations conducted by the Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago between 1933 and 1938 yielded significant early material, while Leonard Woolley's campaigns for the British Museum at Tell Açana (Alalach) from 1937 to 1949 revealed seventeen stratified levels from the fourth through second millennia BCE. The Princeton University and Musées Nationaux de France jointly conducted excavations from 1935 to 1939 in Antakya, Samandağ (Seleucia Pieria), İskenderun, and the Daphne grove (modern Harbiye), recovering the bulk of the mosaic collection. The museum also holds Hellenistic and Roman sculpture, coin collections arranged chronologically, sarcophagi, building stones, and Islamic medieval objects.

The mosaic collection, comprising approximately one hundred Roman floor mosaics and Byzantine wall mosaics, forms the museum's core attraction. Notable examples include the Four Seasons mosaic from a second-century CE villa in Daphne, depicting seasonal figures and mythological scenes such as Bellerophon and Stheneboia, Paris and Helen, Hippolytus and Phaedra, and the Calydonian Boar hunt. The Oceanus and Thetis mosaic from fourth-century Daphne shows the sea deities with marine creatures and Eros riding a dolphin; two additional versions from İskenderun and Antakya are also displayed. The fifth-century Yakto mosaic from Harbiye features Megalopsychia in a central medallion surrounded by mythological hunt scenes with named participants including Adonis, Narcissus, Teiresias, Actaeon, Hippolytus, and Meleager, bordered by scenes of daily life. Other significant mosaics include the third-century Buffet mosaic from Daphne, depicting Ganymede and various birds; the fifth-century octagonal Soteria mosaic from a bath at Narlıca; and multiple depictions of the drunken Dionysus. Three-dimensional highlights include a second-century CE statue of the Roman emperor Lucius Verus from Samandağ; column bases with lion figures from Tell Tayinat; a relief of Hittite king Tudhaliya IV; and an Assyrian relief from Tell Tayinat showing soldiers carrying severed heads. The collection also preserves idiosyncratic images such as the hunchback, the fisherman, and an infant Heracles battling snakes.

The original 1938 museum building was constructed in Antakya's city center under French architectural direction. After decades of use and expansion, this facility proved inadequate for the growing collection and modern exhibition requirements. The new museum complex, built beginning in 2011 and opened in 2014, occupies a site several kilometers north of Antakya's center. This facility provides 10,700 square meters of exhibition space displaying 3,500 square meters of mosaics, with 32,754 square meters of total indoor space, making it substantially larger than its predecessor. The museum's grounds include outdoor displays of Roman sarcophagi, building stones, and water jars.

The Hatay Archaeology Museum is located in Antakya, Hatay Province, Turkey, several kilometers north of the city center at its current site. It operates under Turkish state ownership as a public museum. The institution maintains an official website offering information in Turkish and English, and has undertaken digitization efforts to increase accessibility, with portions of the collection available for online consultation. In 2012, a section of the collection was digitized as part of attendance-building initiatives. The museum's holdings are arranged according to findspot, with objects displayed in wall niches and cases.