Museums Displaying Lycian Artifacts
Lycia is itself a giant open-air museum. However, the museums listed below display Lycian artifacts.
Fethiye
Museum:
a delightful museum in the
center of the town, with archaeological and ethnographical sections.
Displays the finds from archaeological excavations conducted in Fethiye and
other Lycian cities. Exhibits include pieces from the Bronze, Archaic,
Hellenistic and Roman ages, Byzantine period, as well as ethnographic pieces
from the Menteşe and Ottoman times. There are
coins from various periods, pre-historical and
historical ornaments, statues, busts etc. Also pieces of a tomb from Tlos,
grave steles, amphorae, bronze pieces, offering altars, jewelry, column
pedestals and capitals and earthenware vases. Large pieces are displayed
in the open-air gallery outside. One very significant find displayed here is the
'Trilingual Stele' from Letoon,
bearing inscriptions in Greek,
Lycian and Aramaic, which was crucial in the deciphering of the Lycian language.
The museum is open every day except Mondays, 08:00-17:00. At the entrance of the museum books in various languages especially on archaeological and historical subjects are offered for sale.
Our Fethiye Museum page with loads of photos
Istanbul
Archaeological Museum:
housed in
three buildings just inside the first court of Topkapi Palace
(to the right of and behind St. Irene) and holds over a million pieces of art.
Not too many pieces from Lycia, but don't miss the spectacular Monumental
"Lycian Tomb" (sarcophagus) -
Views 1,
Views 2,
Views 3. Read more about this sarcophagus
here.
Open every day but Monday, 09:00-17:00
Good Wikipedia page about the museum
Antalya Archaeological Museum: an excellent museum, one of Turkey's largest, with 13 exhibition halls and an open air gallery in the lovely garden behind the museum. 5000 works of art are exhibited. In addition a further 25-30,000 artefacts which cannot be displayed are in storage. Prehistoric and ancient art as well as an ethnography section featuring Turkish pieces. Many finds from the surrounding area.
There is a Lycian Hall in which findings from Lycia are displayed. Large pieces, such as sarcophagi, tombstone, statues are displayed in the open air gallery outside (a beautiful park).
The important Kumluca (or Sion or Korydalla) Treasure from Lycia is found here (what was recovered to Turkey). Also, lots of Lycian coins in the Hall of Coins as well as the recovered Elmali Treasure. Read about the treasures here.
2 Konyaati Cad., 500 metres from the Sheraton Voyager Hotel
Antalya Web's Antalya Museum web pages (English)
Good Wikipedia page about the museum
Lycian sarcohagus in the museum's open air gallery
Several beautiful pictures taken at the museum
U.K.
British
Museum, London
Much of the most beautiful of Lycia's art was shipped to the British Museum in London from Xanthos by Sir Charles Fellows - seventy huge crates of marbles. Many pieces are on display including the spectacular Nereid Monument, freizes, reliefs, sculptures and a beautiful sacrophagus.
The highlights of the collection
Austria
Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna: owns
the Heroon of Trysa, one of the major monuments of classical art. The museum
has re-opened its antiquities galleries after a major refurbishment,
however
the heroon remains in storage (Nov. 2005) although the museum plans to find a
way to display it.
The heroon has been in the possession of the museum since 1884 and since then has been unavailable for any extended public viewing. Why is this and when may the public view the monument?
One may view a model of the Heroon in the Ephesus Museum in Vienna.
Casts from the Heroon of Trysa
A Possible Future Museum
The Kalkan Association (Kalkan Derneği) and Çekul (The Foundation for the Promotion and Protection of the Environment and Cultural Heritage) are presently working with in conjunction with the Akdeniz University's archaeology department on a plan to convert Kakan's now-unused historic primary school building (built in 1937 by Mustafa Kocakaya as one of the earliest school in the history of Republic of Turkey) into a Lycian Civilizations Research Centre where artifacts from the diggings at Patara, Xanthos, Letoon etc. would be exhibited and the building would also be used a convention centre where meetings, seminars, conferences and scientific and cultural projects would be held.
I will update information about this plan as it becomes available.