Antalya Museum

A collection covering the period from the Lower Paleolithic Age, which is the oldest settlement in Anatolia, to the Roman Period, and an ethnographic collection reflecting the Ottoman culture in Anatolia are exhibited in the museum. At the end of the First World War, when Antalya was under Italian occupation, some Italian archaeologists, claiming that it was in the name of civilization, attempted to transfer various archaeological assets they had captured in the center and nearby ruins to the Italian Consulate. In order to stop these attempts, Süleyman Fikri Bey, who was a Sultani teacher, applied to the Antalya governorship in 1919 and had him appointed as an honorary Asar-ı Âtika officer, and first of all, he collected the ancient artifacts in the center and went to establish the Antalya Museum. Founded in Alaeddin Mosque in 1922 and later moved to its current building in 1972, the Antalya Museum consists of 13 exhibition halls, a children's section and open-air galleries. All of the exhibited works belong to the region. Natural history and prehistory collection, statues of gods and emperors, artifacts belonging to tomb cults, coins, mosaics and icons and ethnographic works can be seen in the museum. The museum received the Council of Europe Special Award in 1988.