The museum where the statues, reliefs and sarcophagi from the excavation are displayed; one of the rare examples built within the archaeological site itself. A substantial part of the Sebasteion reliefs is here.
The museum opened in 1979 and holds finds reaching from prehistoric periods to the Byzantine era: statues, reliefs, sarcophagi, portraits, inscriptions, coins and pottery. The collection came largely out of the city's own ground.
That the museum stands within the archaeological site is an arrangement rarely met with in Turkey: you can see a building on the site and examine the piece it carried a few hundred metres away. Among the well-known works on display are the Zoilos Frieze and the statue of Melpomene.
The Sevgi Gönül Hall, opened in 2008, is given over to a substantial part of the Sebasteion reliefs. Here the panels are arranged not as individual works one by one but so that they can be read within the programme they belong to.
The hall is also a conservation decision: panels whose surfaces would be worn by remaining in the open air have been brought into an enclosed and controlled environment.
The museum's most instructive pieces are the unfinished statues as much as the finished ones. Works left half-done show the stages from rough carving to polish side by side, and tell directly how the Aphrodisias School of Sculpture worked.
The raw material of this tradition, which ran from the 1st century BC to the 5th century AD, came from the quarries north-east of the city — and it is precisely these quarries that are the second component of the 2017 UNESCO inscription.
Fees and hours may change — verify before you visit. Last verified: 2026-08
The monumental gate opening onto the sanctuary of Aphrodite; with its sixteen columns set out in four rows and their spiral-fluted shafts, it is the emblem of the city. What stands today was arrived at by returning most of its stones to their places.
A building complex dedicated to the imperial cult, made up of two three-storey porticoes; with its marble reliefs it carries a visual programme with few equals in the Roman world.
About 270 metres long, with thirty rows of seating and room for thirty thousand; closed at both ends, it is an unusual structure among Greek stadiums.
