Antakya Archaeological Museum

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Oceanus and Thetis (detail), mosaic from Harbiye, 4th century

The Antakya Archaeological Museum (officially Hatay Archaeological Museum , Turkish Hatay Arkeoloji Müzesi ) includes archaeological finds from the vicinity of Antakya (ancient Antioch on the Orontes ), the Turkish province of Hatay and from Tarsus, one of the world's most extensive collections of Roman mosaics . In Turkey the collection is only surpassed by the Zeugma Mosaic Museum, which opened in 2011 .

history

The first excavations in Antakya and the surrounding area were carried out from 1932. At the suggestion of the participating French archaeologist Claude Prost, the construction of a museum was decided and started in 1934 under the architectural direction of Michel Ecocherde. The construction work was completed in 1939 when the former Sanjak Alexandrette was attached to the Turkish Republic as Hatay Province . It then took another nine years before the exhibits stored in depots were brought into the museum rooms and the museum could be opened on July 23, 1948 for the Hatay Liberation Festival. As the number of exhibits increased steadily due to further excavations, an extension had to be tackled in the 1960s, which was opened in 1973 after four years of construction. The number of exhibition rooms rose from five to eight.

move

In 2011, a new building for the museum was built on the outskirts, which opened on December 28, 2014. Newspapers reported that at least 10 mosaics had been improperly restored. The cause of this property damage is that the mosaics were smashed during the move and then improperly assembled.

exhibition

From excavations of the Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago in the Amik Plain from 1933 to 1938, exhibits come from prehistoric , Assyrian and Hittite times as well as from the reign of Mittani . The sites are Tell Cüdeyde, Tell Tayinat , Dehep and Çatal Höyük (not identical to Çatalhöyük near Konya). These include a relief with Assyrian soldiers marching over the corpses of their decapitated enemies and carrying their heads in their hands from Tell Tayinat (7th century BC), as well as pillars with lion figures, also from Tell Tayinat (8th century BC) . Chr.). More than 150 other settlement mounds are known in the Amik plain, but these have only been partially investigated.

Leonard Woolley's excavations for the British Museum in Tell Açana ( Alalach ) from 1937 to 1949 brought to light 17 layers of finds from the fourth to the end of the second millennium BC. These include idols from the Mittani period, altars, ceramics, Hittite portal lions and a relief of the Hittite king Tudhalija IV. The excavations in Alalach were continued from 2000 by the University of Chicago as part of a survey of the Amik level that has been taking place since 1995 .

The majority of the mosaics exhibited in the museum come from excavations carried out by Princeton University in collaboration with the Musées Nationaux de France between 1935 and 1939 in Antakya itself, ancient Antioch on the Orontes , and the surrounding area, in Samandağ ( Seleukia Pieria ), İskenderun (Alexandrette) and the grove of Daphne, today's Harbiye recreation area south of Antakya. Among the numerous works up to 25 m² in size are particularly noteworthy:

  • The four seasons , from the 2nd century AD, found in a villa in Daphne, each of which has a figure depicting the seasons in each of the four corners. Scenes from Greek mythology are also shown, including Bellerophon and Stheneboia , Paris and Helena , Hippolytos and Phaidra , the hunt for the Calydonian boar and, in the middle, heavily destroyed, Jason and Medea .
  • Okeanos and Thetis , 4th century, found at Daphne. The sea god and goddess are represented with the animals of the sea and Eros riding a whale. Two more mosaics from Okeanos and Thetis can be seen, one from Iskenderun and one from Antakya.
  • The Yakto mosaic , from the 5th century, found in Yakto near Harbiye (Daphne). Megalopsychia can be seen in a medallion in the middle, the side borders show hunting scenes from mythology, the actors are each named by name: Adonis chases a boar, Narkissus fights a lion, Teiresias with a panther, Acto with a bear, Hippolytus with mythical animals and Melagros with a tigress. Scenes from everyday life are depicted on the outer borders.
  • The coat of arms-shaped buffet mosaic , from the 3rd century, found in Daphne. In the lower, semicircular part, Ganymede is shown handing water to an eagle, framed by plates with food, in the upper part various birds are depicted.
  • The octagonal Soteria mosaic , from the 5th century, found in the floor of a bath in Narlıca near Antakya. It shows Soteria as an elegant woman with a wreath on her head and a necklace.
  • Numerous small, sometimes curious images such as the happy hunchback, the fisherman's ear, Herakles , who as a plump six-month-old infant fights with two snakes, as well as several depictions of the drunk Dionysus .

A statue of the Roman emperor Lucius Verus from the 2nd century AD was found in the area of Samandağ .

photos

  • Lucius Verus

  • Apollo as the sun god

  • Soteria

  • Spring (the four seasons)

  • Okeanos and Thetis

  • The happy hunchback

  • The fishing moor

  • Heracles and the Serpents

literature

  • Bülent Dönmez: Hatay. Museum and the surrounding area , Dönmez Offset Müze Eserleri Turistik Yayınları, Ankara 1985. ISBN 9753870051
  • Jutta Meischner: The sculptures of the Hatay Museum in Antakya . In: Yearbook of the German Archaeological Institute . tape 117 , 2003, ISSN  0070-4415 , p. 285–339 ( excerpt from GoogleBooks ).

Web links

Commons : Antakya Archaeological Museum  - Collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Turkey: Roman mosaics 'ruined' in botched restoration. BBC, May 5, 2015, accessed May 5, 2015 .
  2. ↑ Restorasyon scandalı! - Yeni Hatay Arkeoloji Müzesi'nde Roma mozaikleri restorasyon scandalı yaşandığı ortaya çıktı. Milliyet, May 4, 2015, accessed May 5, 2015 (Turkish).
  3. ↑ Gherardo Ugolini: Investigations into the figure of the seer Teiresias . Gunter Narr Verlag, 1995 ISBN 9783823348719 p. 257 at GoogleBooks

Coordinates: 36 ° 12 ′ 7 ″  N , 36 ° 9 ′ 36 ″  E