The town of İznik , in northwestern Turkey , may not be as well - known as nearby Istanbul , but it has a history just as long and storied . Once ruled over by followers of Alexander the Great , it eventually became one of the most crucial urban centers in the Roman Empire , where , renamed Nicaea , it found its major claim to fame in Christianhistory , hosting the first and second Councils of Nicaea – the meetings which officially set out some of the foundational belief of the faith .

Over the centuries since then , it ’s seen earthquakes , invasion , industriousness , and decline , with some of the quondam and most venerated internet site destroyedeven in the modern era . It ’s been the uppercase of four civilizations and hasbeen suggestedas a UNESCO World Heritage Site .

Given all this , it may be surprising that the town has only just got its own museum – but now , more than two years after the first rock was put , the İznik Museum of Archaeology has last been completed .

“ The new museum contains quite significant transferrable cultural assets , ” former museum director and archaeologist Taylan Sevil told the localIhlas News Agency . “ There are artifacts of many civilizations from prehistoric clip to the present . ”

Among those artifacts are a marble control board secret plan from the romish epoch , a highly decorated sarcophagus dedicated to the Greek paladin Achilles , and the sarcophagus of Alexander the Great ’s general Antigonos I. But there ’s another relic that ’s even more intriguing : an Ancient Roman varsity letter of mourning , discover in Antigonos ’s tomb , newly read and displayed 2,500 years after it was in the first place composed .

“ I , the sad Arete , cry out with all body and soulfulness from the tomb of Antigonos , ” the content read . “ I commit my hair out from grief and I express myself by crying . This inauspicious fate , the death , has captured me rather of emancipating this valued world . ”

It ’s not know who “ Arete ” was – the terminal figure is not really a name , but an Ancient Greek conception depict “ excellency ” in some way . Depending on what or who it was go for to , it could refer to the realisation of one ’s full potential difference ; moral virtue ; self - control or justice ; strength and bravery ; or simply the Department of State of being “ good ” .

But whoever the content come from , it conveys an emotional story that we all go through at some stop : grief at the loss of someone important to us . No marvel , then , that it ’s one of the showstoppers in the new museum , which officials hope will become one of the most important in the world .

“ The museum fill a huge gap here , ” Sevil say . “ It [ will receive ] people to witness world civilization . ”