Izmir City Museums,

The first Museum of Izmir, the historical, archaeological and cultural center of western Anatolia, was established in 1927 in the Ayavukla Church in the district of Basmahane. When the Archaeological Museum was opened in the Culture Park in 1951 the museum in Basmahane was used as a depot for some of the objects while construction of Izmir Regional Museum was begun in Bahribaba Park. Upon completion, the Basmahane museum will move to the new building. Today in the Basmahane museum – at present used as a depot only -are works from various periods from the Izmir and Aegean regions. Among them are statues of emperors and empresses, grave steles, building stones, a coin collection, and in the garden friezes from the Temple of Dionysus in Theos, and statues and sarcophagi from Aphrodisias.

Izmir Culture Park Archaeological Museum:

Here are exhibited works from the Chalcolithic Age to the Byzantine period. Among them are stone axes, pottery, flint knives and saws from the bronze age (IV millennium BC), pottery from the Hittite period (1900-1200 BC), pottery and metal and stone objects from the Archaic, Classical and Hellenistic periods of the Ionian civilization, statues, clay figurines, vases, dishes, lamps, glass, coins, clay and marble sarcophagi and gravestones from the Roman period, and capitals of columns from the Archaic, Hellenistic, Roman and Byzantine periods. The Archaeological museum has been arranged according to region -Izmir, Bergama, Sart, and Ephesus.
Works from Bergama: Marble heads of women and Heracles, statues of Aphrodite and the Goddess of Victory (Nike), and a statue of a youth from the Roman period. From the Hellenistic period ahead of Aphrodite, a statue of a dancing woman, marble Knidos Aphrodite, and a grave dating from 3000-2500 BC.

You will continue to find more details about the Archaeological Museum of Istanbul in Chapter 2.

Also, Private Istanbul Tours organize Izmir day tours and ızmir private tours according to your travel group size every day all year round from Izmir, Selcuk, Kusadasi, Pamukkale, Çanakkale, and Istanbul.