It opened to the public on 9 September 2011. The 30,000 m2 museum features 2,448 m2 of mosaic and replaces the Bardo National Museum in Tunis as the world’s largest mosaic museum.

The museum’s Hellenistic Greek and Roman mosaics are focused on Zeugma, which is said to have been founded as Seleucia by Seleucus I Nicator, founder of the Seleucid Kingdom after serving as a hetairoi military officer in the army of Alexander the Great.

The treasures, including the mosaics, remained relatively unknown until 2000 when artifacts appeared in museums and when plans for new dams on the Euphrates meant that much of Zeugma would be flooded. In 2011, many of the mosaics remain covered, and teams of researchers continue to work on the project.

History

Zeugma was founded in the early 3rd century BC as the city of Seleucia by Seleucus I Nicator, a Diadochus (successor) to Alexander the Great and Hellenistic Greek founder of the Seleucid Kingdom, on the site where he had the first bridge over the Euphrates built.

In 64 BC, the Roman Republic gained control of the city. Zeugma was of great importance to the Roman Empire as it was located at a strategically important place. Up to 70,000 people lived in the city, and it became a center for the military and commerce for the ancient Romans. In 253 AD, it was destroyed by the Sassanids, but was later rebuilt.

In late antiquity, Zeugma was a diocese of the early Roman church, but the place seems to have been abandoned in the 7th century due to Sassanid Persian and then Arab raids by the Umayyad Caliphate. Arabs lived there temporarily in the Middle Ages. By the 17th century the Ottoman Turkish village of Belkis was built near the ruins.