Şanlıurfa Archaeology and Mosaic Museum
It seems the name Şanlıurfa Archaeology and Mosaic Museum is an invention. Tickets for one of two museums described below are valid at the second one. However, in Turkish they each have a name of their own. They have separate websites. The name may refer to an older museum, a 2017 article is named that indeed would be a name for the two together. But the old museum no longer exists. The "belediye" on its website treats the two as separate museums. Foreign sites use the name, but probably follow the invention blindly.
Şanlıurfa Archaeology and Mosaic Museums or Şanlıurfa Museum are located in the south-eastern city of Şanlıurfa, Turkey. The museums contain remains of Şanlıurfa, Göbekli Tepe, Karahan Tepe, Harran, findings from the Southeastern Anatolia Project and ruins found in the hydroelectric dam reservoirs of Atatürk Dam, Birecik Dam and Karkamış Dam. Both museums are located at Haleplibahçe Mahallesi 2372, Sok Eyyübiye/Şanlıurfa.
The location history and the building
The old museum located at Çamlık Caddesi was opened in 1969 with a display area of 1500sq.m. Later on annexes were added. Before that, archaeological finds were displayed in the rooms of the Şehit-Nüsret-elementary school, therefore in Atatürk-elementary school.The current museum is on Haleplibahçe street, close to Balıklıgöl, a sacred pool. The museum opened in 2015, and replaced the former museum of Şanlıurfa on Çamlık street. With a closed area of, it is one of the biggest museums of in Turkey. The museum consists of two major buildings. To the north is the archaeology museum and to the south is the mosaic museum.
The museum has 3 floors and covers 2,500 square meters of indoor space.
The mosaic museum
The mosaic of Orpheus was created in 184 A.D. in Edessa. It was found in 1980, and was taken to United States by illegal means. After some handovers, it returned to Şanlıurfa from the Dallas Museum in 2015.The archaeology section
In the ground and upper floor there are four exhibition halls. The first exhibition hall is reserved for Assyrian, Babylonian and Hittite artifacts. In the second and third halls, Neolithic, Chalcolithic and Bronze Age items such as stone tools, terracota ceramic tools, stamps, pithoi, necklaces, figurines, metallic tools, ornaments, and idols are exhibited. One of the most important items is a 9500-year-old sculpture which is the oldest-known life-size human sculpture. In the ethnographic section, clothes, silver and bronze ornaments, handworks, doors with epitaph, examples of calligraphy, and hand written Korans are exhibited. In the yard, there are various archaeologic items.It includes the Urfa Man statue, dated c. 9000 BC, being considered as the oldest life-sized sculpture of a human already discovered.