Aydın Archaeological Museum

Hikayemiz

Aydın Archaeological Museum is an archaeological museum in Aydın, western Turkey. Established in 1959, it contains numerous statues, tombs, columns and stone carvings from the Hellenistic, Roman, Byzantine, Seljuk and Ottoman periods, unearthed in ancient cities such as Alinda, Alabanda, Amyzon, Harpasa, Magnesia on the Maeander, Mastaura, Myus, Nisa, Orthosia, Piginda, Pygela and Tralleis. The museum also has a section devoted to ancient coin finds.BackgroundArtifacts discovered in the region of Aydın were initially stored and so protected in the Community Center of the city. In 1950, the collected objects were transferred to the Undersecretariat of Treasury. The museum was formed as an office on February 16, 1959, and it gained the status of a directorate on February 17, 1969.The museum moved to its new building on April 23, 1973. In the beginning, ethnographical items and archaeological artifacts were exhibited together in the same building. In the following years, the number of artifacts obtained from the scientific archaeological excavations at the sites of ancient civilizations around the city increased. The need of a new and bigger museum building became inevitable as the available space of the showrooms, warehouses and service units could not meet contemporary museology norms anymore. In 2000, the museum underwent a mandatory redesign. However, the lack of an expansion option led to the elaboration of a project for a new museum's building.