The Ephesus Archaeological Museum, Selçuk

Nearly every carved thing you look at inside Ephesus is a cast. The originals are here, ten minutes away, in a small modern museum in the middle of Selçuk — indoors, air conditioned, and visited by a fraction of the people who walk past their copies.

What is in it

The two Artemis statues. The Great Artemis and the Beautiful Artemis, both found buried in the Prytaneion at the top of the site, probably hidden in the fourth century when the old cults were being shut down. They are the reason to come. Nothing prepares you for the density of the carving.

The Temple of Hadrian reliefs. The originals of the four panels in the porch, at eye level. See the temple.

The Terrace Houses rooms. Reconstructed interiors with the frescoes and mosaics that could not be left in place.

The Trajan Fountain sculpture, including the rest of the statue whose foot you saw on Curetes Street.

The gladiator cemetery finds. Bones with injuries on them, from the burial ground near the site, and one of the better bodies of evidence anywhere for how gladiators lived and died.

A head of Eros, a bronze of a boy on a dolphin, the Socrates fresco, and a room of small domestic objects that does more to explain daily life at Ephesus than any of the streets.

Practical

• €10 for foreign visitors, covered by the Museum Pass
• open 08:30 to 20:00 in the summer season, last tickets 19:30
• in the middle of Selçuk, opposite the otogar, 3 km from the Lower Gate
• allow an hour; ninety minutes if you read

When to go

After the site, not before — the objects mean much more once you have stood where they came from.

It is also the right answer to a hot afternoon or a wet day. If you are on a cruise call with time to spare after Ephesus, this is a better use of ninety minutes than a carpet demonstration.