Zeugma_Mosaic_Museum
Zeugma Mosaic Museum
Museum in Gaziantep, southern Turkey
Zeugma Mosaic Museum, in the city of Gaziantep, Turkey, is the biggest mosaic museum in the world, containing 1700 m2 of mosaics.[2] It opened to the public on 9 September 2011. The 30,000 m2 (320,000 sq ft) museum features 2,448 m2 (26,350 sq ft) of mosaic and replaces the Bardo National Museum in Tunis as the world's largest mosaic museum.[1][3]
The museum's Hellenistic Greek and Roman mosaics are focused on Zeugma, which is said to have been founded as Seleucia by Seleucus I Nicator, founder of the Seleucid Kingdom after serving as a hetairoi military officer in the army of Alexander the Great.[4] The treasures, including the mosaics, remained relatively unknown until 2000 when artifacts appeared in museums and when plans for new dams on the Euphrates meant that much of Zeugma would be flooded.[5] In 2011, many of the mosaics remain covered,[6] and teams of researchers continue to work on the project.[7]
The museum building and its artifacts survived the Mw 7.8 2023 Turkey–Syria earthquake unscathed, unlike most of Gaziantep, which was heavily damaged. All of the museum staff also survived the earthquake.[8] The museum was reopened in April 2023, two and a half months after the 2023 Turkey–Syria earthquake.[9]
