Kocaeli Museum

Our museum is temporarily closed when exhibition arrangement renewal works are carried out.

Kocaeli Museum Directorate and Kocaeli Archeology Museum are located in the area where the historical Izmit train station is located. The repair workshop, train shed, water tank, lodging building and tekel warehouses of the Izmit train station have been transformed into Kocaeli Archeology and Ethnography Museum since 2007 within the framework of contemporary museum understanding. With the change made in 2020, the Ethnography section of the museum was moved to Atatürk Redif and Ethnography Museum, and the museum in question was re-functionalized under the name of Kocaeli Archeology Museum.

Museum Exhibition Hall

The story of the Megarians who founded the city of Astakos, traces of the fourth largest city in the world, which was the capital of Rome and distinguished marble works of the Ottoman period await their visitors in the Archaeology Museum. Artefacts from the Paleolithic, Classical, Hellenistic, Roman, Eastern Roman and Ottoman periods are displayed chronologically in the exhibition halls of the museum. At the entrance of the museum, visitors are welcomed with the statue of Heracles (Hercules), one of the most important mythological heroes of the ancient world. This statue is the world’s second largest Heracles (Hercules) statue. When we look at the left side of the museum’s entrance, there are amphoras showing the richness of the underwater cultural heritage of the region and information about ancient maritime. At the same time, artefacts found as a result of underwater research on the shores of Kerpe in 2020 are also exhibited. In the first section of the museum, stone tools used by the people of the Paleolithic age are included. In the second and third sections, it is possible to see the ceramics belonging to the Megarians who set out from Megara 2700 years ago and settled in Başiskele and founded the city of Astakos, and the items used in the daily lives of the people who lived in the Classical and Hellenistic periods. The fourth section exhibits bronze items and ceramic pots used in the Middle Ages. In the fifth section, there are distinguished marble busts of the victorious commanders, successful athletes, and honored people in the Roman Period. In the sixth and seventh sections, there are oil lamps used as lighting tools, fragrance bottles, figurines and distinguished examples of glass works from the Roman Period. In the eighth and ninth sections, there are showcases named “One of the Greatest Archaeological Discoveries in Turkey”. If we briefly summarize the importance of the works in the exhibition; During the archaeological excavations carried out by the Kocaeli Museum Directorate in the Çukurbağ district of Izmit since 2001, an architectural structure from the Roman period was unearthed. In the research, it was understood that it was an imperial complex built during the Emperor Diocletian’s Period (284-305 CE), when Nicomedia was the Roman Imperial capital, and it was destroyed by a great earthquake in the 4th century CE.

Capitals, pedestals, column fragments and red painted high relief frieze fragments of the building have been unearthed, and this monument is one of the greatest discoveries made in Turkey in the last 20 years.

Çukurbağ imperial complex has three great importance in terms of World Cultural Heritage:

 1) Çukurbağ finds constitute the largest archaeological data group found on the lost Roman capital of Nicomedia.

2) Cukurbag reliefs are the best preserved examples of colors ever found in Roman art.

3) The style and iconographic features of the Çukurbağ reliefs, as the pioneer of Late Antique Art, point to the turning point in the transition from Classical Art to Medieval Art in World Art History.

 It is possible to see the “Meeting of Two Emperors”, “emperor and nike”, which are among the most distinguished works of Çukurbağ reliefs, and many distinguished artefacts in the exhibition hall. In the tenth and eleventh showcases, it is possible to see the valuable and semi-precious jewelry unearthed from the graves, as well as the artefacts belonging to the Roman period burials. In the twelfth showcase, there are artefacts related to the Cybele Cult and the altar named “Kandıra Cybele”, which was excavated from the Hacılar Yağbolu cave as a result of the research carried out by the museum directorate in 2020. In the thirteenth showcase, there is a large coin collection covering almost all ages such as Archaic, Classical, Hellenistic, Roman, Eastern Roman, Abbasid, Sassanid, Umayyad and Ottoman. In the middle section, there are showcases created in different themes such as women in the Roman period, medical instruments in the ancient period, the double-faced statues of the ancient period, Januses and the bust of Socrates.

Museum Garden

While most of the artefacts exhibited in the Museum Garden were unearthed during the drilling, dig and excavation works carried out within the borders of our province, there are also artefacts that were brought to the Museum through confiscation. The Museum Garden has been arranged by dividing into blocks starting from the entrance of the Security Checkpoint, so that a concept integrity was created during the exhibition. The artifacts exhibited in the garden of the museum can be dated mainly between the I-III centuries CE, and there are a considerable number of artefacts from the Late Roman and Byzantine Periods, and a small number of artefacts dating to the Late Hellenistic Period. Among the exhibited works, the most common are the Sarcophagi and their Covers, and the other are the Milestones, which can be dated to the II-III Centuries CE. The Marble Altars and Inscriptions occupies the second place. Then, it is necessary to mention the Female and Male Sculptures, among which the Infinity Genius and the Statues for Seasons discovered in Kandıra Kumköy should be counted. Apart from these, it is possible to see Column Capitals, Column Shafts and Column Bases in various forms and sizes, starting from the Hellenistic Period to the Byzantine Period, in the garden of the Museum. In addition, Mehmet Ali Pasha Tomb Chamber and Pamukova Tomb Monument are also exhibited in our garden. Lastly, regarding the garden exhibition, the pithos in front of the exhibition hall and the Ottoman Period Tombstones, Fountain Mirrors and Ottoman Cannons located on the left side of the garden entrance are notable.

 Today, Kocaeli Museum continues to contribute to the cultural life of Kocaeli with its workshops for children and museum conferences.