Side’s Museum clean up

The Archaeological Museum of Side had a charm that was quite unique. It is housed inside the ancient Roman Baths from the 2^nd century AD, which had been restored and roofed in the 1960s. 

I found the interior quite exciting, as the marble floors and water basins gave me a true sense of what the Roman public must have experienced when visiting these baths, with high vaulted ceilings and filtered natural light from the windows high above. 

[Picture from Turkiye Today, AA Photo]

Presently, the exhibition space has been revamped, i.e., officially restored. The pictures published in Turkiye Today show how the statues stand inside shop windows framed with neon light. Each highlighted ‘window’ regroups a number of artefacts in the otherwise semi-obscure interior. The features of the Baths have disappeared, including the remarkable original marble floor. 

The renovation is clearly meant to attract more visitors, or visitors of another kind. The newspaper article stresses the large collection of more than 3,000 artifacts and nearly 10,000 coins ranging from the Late Bronze Age to Hellenistic, Roman and Byzantine times. Must we assume that they were hidden from view until now? 

Although the museum held many sarcophagi, statues, reliefs, and inscriptions, I was not really impressed by the quality of the pieces. The most striking object was the bit of inscription written in the lost Sidetic language (see: Progress in deciphering the lost language of Side). 

Since 2014, new excavations have exposed many more artifacts that are not being specified in any way. Some are said to be presented here for the first time. Otherwise, they are vaguely referred to as contributing to a better insight into Side's daily life. Let’s hope for more information to substantiate this theory!