The department has been working on three sites, Hacımusalar, Gre Dimse, and Kinet Höyük. Hacımusalar, an excavation site near Elmalı (Antalya), is a settlement that was inhabited from prehistoric through medieval times. The goal of this project, directed by Dr. İlknur Özgen, includes learning more about the fascinating Lycian culture of southwest Turkey. Kinet Höyük, near Dörtyol north of İskenderun, is the excavation site of a harbor town occupied continuously from at least the Early Bronze Age (ca. 3000 BC) through the Hellenistic period (1st century BC), and again briefly in the Middle Ages (12th-13th centuries). The excavations, directed by Dr. Marie-Henriette Gates, are providing important evidence about the changing relationships between Mediterranean and inland civilizations during this long period of habitation. The third project, led by Norbert Karg, is the investigation of a Neo-Assyrian outpost at Gre Dimse, on the Tigris River near Batman, in an area to be flooded by the Ilısu Dam.

Archaeologist Dominique Kassab Tezgör of the Fine Arts faculty will discuss "Sinop and its Amphora Production during the Roman Empire" on Wednesday, February 21. On February 27, the Kinet Höyük excavations will be discussed, together with the Ege University excavations at Clazomenae, near İzmir. Both lectures will be at 5:40 p.m. in room H-132. In addition, visiting professor Jacob Roodenberg, Dept of Archaeology and History of Art, will be lecturing in April about his excavations at Ilipinar, near Bursa. If you are curious about what happens on an archaeological excavation, what problems are researched and what techniques are used, please come and find out.