Hatay Archaeology Museum

Antioch on the Orontes was one of the largest cities of the Roman world, and the villas of its wealthy suburb at Daphne had floors laid with mosaic of exceptional quality. Excavations from the 1930s onward lifted them, and the Hatay museum holds the result: room after room of second- to fifth-century floors - Oceanus and Thetis, the drunken Dionysus, personifications of Soteria and Megalopsychia, hunting scenes, the famous evil-eye panel with its assembled defences against envy, and a black-and-white hunt mosaic among the largest single pieces anywhere. The collection ranks with Bardo in Tunis and Piazza Armerina for late-antique mosaic. Alongside are Hittite and Assyrian sculpture, sarcophagi and finds from across the province. The museum, begun in 1934 and first opened in 1948, moved into a much larger new building whose second phase opened in 2019 - some 3,500 square metres of mosaic on show, billed as the largest mosaic museum in the world - and it sustained some damage in the 2023 earthquakes.

The main sights

• The Antioch floors - Roman villa mosaics from Daphne.
• The evil-eye panel - the assembled defences against envy.
• The great hunt mosaic - one of the largest single floors known.
• The wider collection - Hittite and Assyrian sculpture and sarcophagi.

When to go

April to June and October to November.

Good to know

Antakya was heavily damaged in 2023 and the city is still rebuilding. Parts of the collection may be off display.

Nearby

Antakya's old town, the Church of St Peter and the Titus tunnel at Samandağ are in the province.

Key facts