Ephesos-Museum der Antikensammlung des Kunsthistorischen Museums Wien - Heldenplatz

Small but included with your House of Austria ticket

The Neue Burg today hosts three museums. The most interesting in my opinion is the Ephesos Museum which includes excavations and antiquities from Ephesus in Turkey. The other, the Sammlug Alter Musik Instrumente and the Collection of Arms and Armour are smaller museums but admission to all three also includes entry to the Kunsthistorisches Museum across the road. I think the museum is managed by the Kunsthistorisches Museum, and was established when collections from various places were gathered here. Outside of London and Ephesus, this would be the next best display of Ephesus archaeological findings. Ephesus is of course a pretty important city in Ancient Greece. The city on the Aegean coast was once a major capital of Asia Minor. It’s home to the Temple of Artemis and its wealth is on display at the museum inside a section of the Neue Burg.

Planning of the Ringstrasse began in 1857 and included the project to bring together and show the imperial collections in a grand new building featuring state-of-the-art technical and display facilities; it took, however, another ten years until the competition to design the new museums was actually held. The architects who participated in 1867 were Hansen, Löhr, Ferstel and Hasenauer, all of whom worked in Vienna. When jury and patron failed for months to agree on a winner, Gottfried Semper, the internationally-renowned architect known for his museum designs, was called in as an advisor in 1868. The Emperor then decided to commission Semper to alter and complete the plans initially presented by Hasenauer. But he also enlarged them – his designs were informed by urban planning in ancient Rome – to create what was known as the “imperial forum”: He envisaged an additional – also symmetrical - pair of buildings aligned with the two museums, each of which featured a semi-circular façade. These two buildings were to flank the Hofburg’s Leopoltinische Trakt (the wing of the old palace erected under Emperor Leopold) for which Semper planned a modern façade and that would house the throne room. However, only the two museums and the part of the “Neue Burg” (new palace) facing the Burggarten (palace garden) were realised. Work on the museums commenced in 1871 and twenty years later, in 1891, they were formally opened to the public. Semper had moderated Hasenauer’s original design for the façades and they now feature a complex art-historical programme of sculptures and reliefs. The building’s internal structure combines two architectural traditions: entrance hall, staircase and cupola hall form a dramatic unit that celebrates the imperial patron and his predecessors. An additional elegant feature is the circular opening in the ceiling of the entrance hall that offers visitors their first glimpse of the cupola hall. Ascending the stairs, visitors pass Antonio Canova’s “Theseus Slaying the Centaur” on their way to the cupola hall, the apex of imperial display. Along this central axis a wealth of neo-baroque decorations create one of the most solemn and splendid interiors of late-nineteenth-century Vienna, probably unrivalled in any other European museum.

The real history is in Turkey. Come to Turkey to see more beautiful historical monuments and real ephemerals. Ephesus

It is not worth it. Even for free I would still feel ripped off. Don't go. Just very fragmented remains, few and small. It's nonsense to keep it separated from Ethnic Museum. It's separated just to take more money from your pocket.

The collection of the Ephesus Museum, which has existed since the end of the 19th century, is part of the collection of antiquities of the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna. Since December 1978, it has had independent premises in the Neue Burg. Before the Ephesus Museum was established, the existing exhibits were temporarily displayed in several places, including the Theseus Temple in the Volksgarten. Located on Turkey's Aegean coast, Ephesus was one of the largest cities in the ancient world and is now one of Turkey's most visited tourist destinations. Since 1895, interrupted only by the two World Wars, Austrian archaeologists conducted research in the ruins of the city under the direction of the Austrian Archaeological Institute (ÖAI). Sultan Abdülhamid II gave Emperor Franz Josef some of the objects found as a gift, thus making possible the founding of the internationally important collection of the Ephesus Museum. Due to the Turkish Antiquities Law, no new objects reached Vienna after 1907. Another museum dedicated to the ancient city is located near the excavation in Selçuk.

Great museum, great building, must see museum for ancient Greek and Roman civilisations lovers .. Display items are not many but very unique.. I have been guiding people in Ephesus and The temple of Artemis and Ephesus museum in Selçuk for over 30 years.. But I am thrilled with some of the display items in here. Highly recommended and looking forward to see these artefacts to be placed back again in Ephesus one day.

Original fragments and also replica of an ancient Greek and Roman Temple located in nowadays Turkey. It's incredible and scary how they took it from the original place and brought it to Vienna. Would consider the debate about western archeological methods.