Since its foundation in 1929, the Ephesus Museum (Turkish: Efes müzesi) has been collecting finds from the nearby excavation in Ephesus and from smaller sites in the surrounding area.

Since 1895 archaeologists of the Austrian Archaeological Institute have been excavating in Ephesus with interruptions during the two world wars. The first finds were brought to Vienna and are exhibited in the Ephesus Museum there. Since British archaeologists were also conducting research in Ephesus at the same time, some of the finds also reached the British Museum.
When the Turkish Antiquities Act of 1906 came into force, the export of archaeological relics from Turkey was prohibited, so that from then on all finds remained on site. When the Austrian excavations were intensified in the mid 1920s, the Ephesus Museum in Selçuk was founded in 1929. Due to the abundance of material, a new building had to be erected, which was inaugurated in 1964 and has since been extended several times. Today it is one of the most renowned museums in Turkey.

Since almost all exhibits come from the same place, the museum is not built according to the usual concept of archaeological museums, which present their exhibits either sorted by peoples or epochs. Rather, the pieces have been grouped here thematically and according to where they were found.

to the exhibits