The New Adana Archaeology Museum Complex and Karatepe-Aslantaş

Founded in 1924 immediately after the proclamation of the Republic, making it one of the five oldest museums in Turkey, the Adana Archaeology Museum (Adana Arkeoloji Müzesi) moved in 2017 into a sweeping 68,000-square-metre industrial heritage campus just 1.5 kilometres west of the city centre on the D400 boulevard (in Döşeme Mahallesi, right next to the historic train station and bus routes; Museum Pass Turkey is valid). Housed inside the brick-and-sawtooth-roof halls of the 1907 Simyonoğlu (National Mensucat) Cotton Spinning and Weaving Factory, the very factory where writer Orhan Kemal worked as a clerk and set his famous novel Murtaza., it is a acclaimed museum.

Four Masterpieces Not to Miss Inside the Adana Archaeology Museum

1. The Colossal Statue of the Storm God Tarhunzas on a Bull Chariot (8th Century BC): discovered in the cherry orchards of Çineköy 30 km south of Adana in 1997, this 2.5-metre-tall monument shows the Neo-Hittite Kingdom of Hiyawa (Que / Cilicia)'s supreme god Tarhunzas standing on a chariot pulled by two bulls, inscribed at the base with a monumental bilingual Luwian Hieroglyphic and Phoenician inscription that talks about the land of Hiyawa (the historical root of Homer's Achaeans).
2. The Marble Achilles Sarcophagus (2nd Century AD, from Tarsus): carved in deep, dramatic high relief out of white Proconnesian marble, depicting the Trojan King Priam kneeling to kiss the hand of Achilles and beg for the body of his slain son Hector (which sits weighed on scales of gold in the centre).
3. The Life-Size Bronze Male Statue from Karataş (Magarsus, 1st Century BC): a rare, intact Hellenistic-Roman bronze portrait statue raised from the sea by fishermen off the ancient port of Magarsus.
4. The Open-Air Mosaic Pavilion: step into the huge glass-roofed pavilion in the factory courtyard to walk above 2,000 square metres of Roman floor mosaics from Augusta, Misis and Antioch-on-the-Cydnus, including Noah's Ark surrounded by pairs of animals and Orpheus charming the beasts.

Extending East to Karatepe-Aslantaş Open-Air Museum (1.5 hours east in Osmaniye)

For travellers with a car heading between Adana and Gaziantep, detour 30 minutes north of Ceyhan/Osmaniye into the pine forests above the Ceyhan River reservoir to Karatepe-Aslantaş National Park: the 8th-century BC summer citadel of King Azatiwada, where archaeologist Halet Çambel uncovered the famous bilingual Phoenician-Luwian gate lions and orthostat reliefs that unlocked the decipherment of Hittite hieroglyphs.