|
Newsletter
of the
Department of Archaeology
&
History of Art
The second Newsletter lies in front of you, after a year in
which many things happened. These included:
Standard yearly excursions
to visit places with new first-year students, and fieldtrips for
students and staff to Rome and Egypt, major events that are
unusual and deserve more special attention.
Staff members’ and students’ research project
results are published here as well.
Lectures
given during this academic year are summarized and illustrated.
This 2nd issue is ‘thicker’ than the first and there
are more entries, which is a sign of success! Collecting the
articles is a difficult task, although everyone seems eager to
write.
The department’s busy academic schedule makes it all the more
commendable that most of its instructors and several students
contributed at least one entry for this Newsletter.
Underwater Archaeology is well represented here, which shows the
energy of several students divers in the department. Among their
many activities, they organized an international underwater
symposium in spring 2002, partly sponsored by the University and
held in the performance hall of BUPS, the Bilkent’s high
school.
The year also gave us an extra new project, when the department
became a participant in the pipeline project from Baku to Ceyhan.
This is a first step into commercial Project & Contract
Archaeology, where young archaeologists can work on short-term
contracts to earn money; but more importantly, to gain work
experience in the real world instead of the mid-summer,
no-stress, |
no-pressure excavation seasons conducted by universities.
The end of this year has of course been dominated by the war
in Iraq. In our university, this war was only noticeable
because of new signs with ‘shelter’ posted on the wall,
showing the way to places deep in the bowels of the
building, where nobody ever went before!
Still, its impact is considerable even here. The war ended
strangely, with tragic loss of life and property; but for
archaeology, with the unacceptable looting of the museums
and burning of the national archives in Baghdad and other
places. Here the ‘best and most modern power’ in the world
had no spare platoon to save the antiquities. The
neglecting commander of the whole War Theater, General Tommy
Franks, will probably not come to my home town, The Hague,
to sit next to the old Yugoslavian leaders. But the failure
to protect the cultural heritage of the occupied country is
a war crime. And nothing will bring back the stolen objects,
or replace the ones that were destroyed.
I hope that you have pleasure in reading Newsletter
No. 2
B.ClaaszCoockson
Newsletter editor
Newsletter No. 2
- 2003, Pg. 1
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