Gaziantep's history runs from Paleolithic flints at Dülük to the 1920-21 siege that earned the city its 'Gazi' title. Between them sit Rome's Zeugma mosaics, Neo-Hittite reliefs from Zincirli, and basalt mosques still working after 800 years.
Roman floor mosaics lifted from Belkıs-Zeugma before the Birecik Dam flooded it in 2000, across roughly 30,000 m²: the Gypsy Girl panel, Dionysos and Ariadne, Achilles on Skyros, plus reconstructed villa rooms and a bronze Mars. Open 08:30-19:00 in summer.
The pre-Zeugma collection: Neo-Hittite basalt orthostats and lion reliefs from Sakçagözü and Zincirli (ancient Sam'al), Late Hittite stelae, Roman glass and Islamic coinage, sequenced from Dülük's Paleolithic flint tools to Ottoman ceramics.
Doliche, 10 km north, was the cult centre of Iupiter Dolichenus, a god carried by legionaries as far as Hadrian's Wall. Rock-cut chamber tombs, a quarried necropolis and a Mithras cave-temple with carved niches lie unfenced among pistachio groves.
Two of Anatolia's oldest working mosques stand a lane apart in the old town. Ömeriye's core is traced to the Umayyad 7th century with an Ayyubid rebuild around 1210; Boyacı, dated 1211, keeps a carved walnut minbar and a striped square minaret.
Cut into the rock below the castle hill, this museum recounts the 11-month French siege of 1920-21 through a 360-degree painted panorama, trench dioramas and recorded accounts of Şahinbey's stand. 25 December is marked as liberation day.
Built in 1860 with funding from Napoleon III for the Armenian Catholic community, this basalt-and-brick basilica later served as a school and a cinema before restoration in the 2000s. The bell tower, rose window and nave arcades are original.
A 19th-century Antep stone mansion restored and opened in 1985: selamlık, kitchen and haremlik rooms staged with period furniture and copperware, and a basement gallery on the 1920-21 defence listing the city's fallen fighters by quarter.
Completed in 1893 as Surp Asdvadzadzin, the Armenian Apostolic cathedral, used as a prison from 1915 and converted to a mosque in 1986. Its three-aisled interior and banded basalt-and-limestone facade make it the largest historic religious building here.
The Bey quarter's grid of black-basalt courtyard houses — Nakıpoğlu, Kekeç and Papirüs konaks among them — retains zerzembe cellars, underground kastel water rooms and iwans opening onto stone hayats. Many reopened after 2023 earthquake repairs.
Founded in 1635 by Mustafa Ağa as a waqf coffee house and still roasting menengiç (terebinth) coffee in copper pots over hot ash. The vaulted hall burned in 1901 and was damaged again in 2023, being rebuilt to its original plan each time.
The 1901 Bayaz Han caravanserai now holds the city museum: tableaux of coppersmiths, yemeni shoemakers and mother-of-pearl inlayers, panels on the 1516 Ottoman conquest of Antep, and records of the han's own trading courtyard.
Attached to the 17th-century Tekke Mosque, this semahane held whirling ceremonies until lodges were closed in 1925. The restored hall displays ney flutes, sikke felt hats and manuscripts, with the tomb chamber of the lodge's last şeyhs adjoining.