In Türkiye, the government wants to speed up archaeological excavations

The authorities have decided to impose Turkish leaders on archaeological excavation sites conducted by foreigners. A decision that has caused a stir in the scientific community.

“You can change the shovel that digs, but not the hand that holds it.”said an archaeologist, referring to this decision considered stupid and dangerous taken by the Minister of Culture and Tourism. Archaeological excavations are scientific work and each excavation manager has on his site a work plan, a memory of the finds, an intimate knowledge of the terrain, which no one else possesses. Name ex nihilo a director would also be comparable to theft, to scientific piracy.

The newly appointed Turkish directors are more than embarrassed. Several of them, speaking on condition of anonymity, say they were forced to accept for fear of losing control of their own excavation sites.

The Turkish minister, to justify this decision, judges that foreign scientists are not moving fast enough. He estimates that everything should be completed in 12 months. An ignorance that stuns. He deplores for example that only 25% of the site of Ephesus, one of the wonders of the world, a magical and immense site not far from the Aegean Sea, has been excavated. With his program, he says, in four years, we will be at 45%. Same fight at Hierapolis, a spa resort from the century BC.

Now, as we know, the value of a site does not depend on the number of square meters excavated. Scientists must be able to take the necessary time. What we fear is in fact an increase in tourist sites. We must make it profitable, fill the coffers, attract more and more tourists, even if it means disfiguring the treasures that this country contains.

This is already the case, as with the striking example of Iznik, which can no longer claim to be a UNESCO world heritage site. This thousand-year-old city in the west of the country, a veritable open-air museum, has undergone a catastrophic restoration. Use of modern materials, destruction of stones, concreting… The mosque, the ramparts, the monumental gates have lost their unique character.

A minaret was thus added, “like an ice cream cone on a tower”experts write. The 14th-century baths are brand new, as if they were built today. Archaeologists denounce an entrepreneurial mentality that is replacing that of researchers in Turkey.