Ephesos Museum

Geschichte

The Ephesos Museum in Vienna displays antiquities from the city of Ephesus (Ephesos), in modern-day Turkey. Begun in the late 19th century, the collection includes original works of sculpture and architecture, and belongs to the Kunsthistorisches Museum.Since 1978 the Ephesos Museum has had its own rooms in the Neue Burg. Before the museum was established, the present exhibits were provisionally displayed in various locations, including on occasion the Theseus Temple in the Volksgarten.Lying on the Turkish Aegean coast, Ephesus was one of the largest cities of the ancient world and is now among the most popular tourist destinations in Turkey. The Austrian Archaeological Institute has been conducting research in the ruins of the city since 1895, interrupted only by the two world wars. The museum's collection began when Sultan Abdul Hamid II donated some of the archaeological findings to Emperor Franz Joseph I. Due to a change in Turkish law, no more artefacts have been sent to Vienna since 1907. Many other Ephesus artefacts are on display in the British Museum in London as well as in the Ephesus Archaeological Museum near the site of the excavation in Selçuk.The collectionBetween 1896 and 1906 a total of seven expeditions transported findings from Ephesus to Vienna. In the early 20th century these findings were exhibited in various places, including Belvedere Palace and the antiques collection of the Kunsthistorisches Museum. In 1911 a provisional exhibition in the Theseus Temple had to be discontinued because of damage to the exhibits. A selection of the items was once again exhibited in the Temple between 1934 and 1944. A number of Ephesean sculptures were displayed in the Neue Burg's colonnade from 1947 until 1978, when the entire collection finally received a permanent home in the newly founded Ephesos Museum.