Zeugma

Zeugma Mosaic Museum in the southeastern province of Gaziantep, one of the largest mosaic museums in the world, broke its daily visitor record during the Eid holiday.

Gaziantep Museum Director Özgür Çomak stated that the all-time visitor record across Türkiye was broken on the second day of Eid al-Fitr and said, "We reached a record number with 5,660 people on the second day alone."

A centuries-old tomb stele smuggled from the ancient Turkish city of Zeugma to Italy has been returned to its home, Turkish Culture and Tourism Minister Mehmet Nuri Ersoy announced on July 13.

A stele is a standing stone slab used in the ancient world for several purposes, including grave and tomb markers, dedications, commemorations and demarcations.

Italy on Friday returned to Turkish authorities a funerary stele, dating from the second century and carrying a loving inscription to the dead woman's spouse, after investigation determined that it was illegally excavated from southeastern Türkiye.

Zeugma Mosaic Museum, among the largest mosaic museums in the world, has reopened its doors to visitors after the earthquakes that rattled the east of the country on Feb. 6.

British historian, writer and publisher Bettany Mary Hughes has made a documentary film on Arslantepe Mound, which is on the UNESCO Cultural Heritage List in the eastern province of Malatya.

Hughes and her team came to Turkey in cooperation with the Culture and Tourism Ministry and the Turkey Tourism Promotion and Development Agency (TGA) and started shooting on April 15.

With the pandemic weakening, tourism professionals in Turkey's southeastern region are hopeful of witnessing a tourism boom this year, expecting an influx of both local and international tourists.

According to a feature story in daily Milliyet on April 21, the occupancy rate in region's hotels is around 90 percent as of April.

New mosaics belonging to the Byzantine period have come to light during the excavations in the 2,300-year-old complex buildings in Balatlar in the northern province of Sinop.

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Copies of 12 pieces of the "Gypsy Girl" mosaic, brought from the U.S. to southeastern Gaziantep in Turkey in 2018, were sent to be exhibited in the American state of Ohio.

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The pieces will be open to visitors at The Wolfe Center For The Arts at Bowling Green State University.

The Gaziantep Archaeology Museum, where the Roman-era clay seal impressions, which is the world's largest collection of clay seal impressions from the ancient city of Zeugma, and the skeletal remains of the extinct Maraş Elephant, are on display, offers the opportunity to examine the history of Anatolia in chronological order.

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Within the scope of ongoing excavations in the ancient city of Zeugma, located in the southeastern province of Gaziantep's Belkıs district, two rock chambers have been unearthed in the area previously discovered and called the "House of Muses" due to the mosaics on its floor.