About Mosaics

It is possible to see the most beautiful examples of Roman and Byzantine mosaic art in Turkey, visit the world’s two biggest mosaic museums, which are found in Turkey.

Ancient Mosaics in Turkey

All around Anatolia, it is possible to come across the most beautiful examples of mosaic art made of fragments of tiles and pottery which, in history, was first applied by the Sumerians 5000 years ago. The unique mosaics from the Roman and Byzantine Empires, which survived the historical events and natural disasters, are today on display in major museums of Turkey.

A team from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln has discovered an impressive Roman mosaic at a little-known site in Turkey.

The 1,600-square-foot work is part of the forecourt of a Roman bath at the ancient city of Antiochia ad Cragum on the southern Turkish coast. The mosaic dates to the third or fourth centuries A.D. and archaeologists think they’ve uncovered less than half of it.

“Its large size signals, in no small part, that the outward signs of the empire were very strong in this far-flung area,” said excavation director and UNL professor Michael Hoff in a press release. “We were surprised to have found a mosaic of such size and of such caliber in this region – it’s an area that had usually been off the radar screens of most ancient historians and archeologists, and suddenly this mosaic comes into view and causes us to change our focus about what we think (the region) was like in antiquity.”

The team has been excavating the city since 2005 and has worked on a third-century imperial temple and a street lined with shops. They hope to uncover the rest of the mosiac next summer.

Hopefully the mosaic will be left in situ so visitors can see it in its original setting, like the mosaics in Ephesus and Pergamon, Turkey’s most famous Classical cities.

In addition to the ancient and Byzantine mosaics, Anatolian is also embellished by the mosaics pertinent to the Islamic era. Islamic architecture used mosaic technique to decorate mosques and palaces since the Arabs conquered the eastern provinces of the Byzantine Empire in the 7th century

The Most Beautiful Examples of Mosaics are;

  • Zeugma Mosaics, Gaziantep
  • Antakya Mosaics, Antakya
  • Great Palace Mosaics, Istanbul
  • Kariye (Chora) Mosaics, Istanbul
  • Misis Mosaics, Adana
  • Haleplibahce Mosaics, Sanliurfa

The Biggest Mosaic Museums in Turkey

  • Zeugma Mosaics Museum, Gaziantep
  • Antakya Mosaic Museum, Antakya

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