At the end of the 1940s, archaeological finds from the area around Silifke, ancient Seleukia on Kalykadnos, began to be collected at the Cumhuriyet Primary School in Silifke.
From 1958, rooms of the school were used as a museum. In the early 1970s the construction of a separate museum building was started. On August 2, 1973 the present Silifke Müzesi was opened.

The museum houses two rooms with archaeological finds on two floors, a room on the upper floor for jewellery and coins and an ethnological section on the ground floor.
The lower archaeological room contains mainly works in stone, statues, steles, a sarcophagus and reliefs, while the upper room is reserved for ceramic and glass artefacts. The excavation finds range from the Neolithic Age to the Ottoman Empire and come from the area around Silifke.
The sites include Olba and Diokaisareia (Uzuncaburç), the Corycian Caves (Cennet ve Cehennem), Cambazlı, Aphrodisias in Cilicia (Yeşilovacık), Kelenderis (Aydıncık), Korasion (Atakent), Korykos (Kızkalesi), Meydancıkkale and Seleukia (Silifke) itself.

From Meydancıkkale are the remains of two caryatids belonging to a 6th century mausoleum found at the foot of the castle hill there. On the slope of this mountain a hoard from the Hellenistic period with over 5000 silver coins was discovered in 1980, which can be seen here. Among them are coins of Alexander the Great and from the time of the Diadochi Seleukos Nikator, Lysimachos, Demetrios and Antigones Gonatas.

The large museum garden contains architectural fragments, including column capitals and drums, stelae, friezes and inscription blocks, from Roman to Islamic times, as well as sarcophagi and pithoi.

to the exhibits