Book Project
Submerged: Archaeological Rescue and Historical Erasure in Eastern Turkey
Submerged examines the archaeological rescue operations carried out during the construction of large dams on the Upper Euphrates in the 1960s and 1970s. Focusing on the Keban Dam Rescue Project—the first large-scale salvage archaeology program undertaken in Turkey—the book traces how archaeologists attempted to document and preserve threatened historical landscapes while the river valley itself was being transformed into a vast reservoir.
Drawing on archival research, excavation reports, visual documentation, and oral histories, the project explores how rescue archaeology functioned simultaneously as preservation and disappearance. It shows how the documentation of submerged landscapes helped produce new historical narratives even as entire regions were erased from the map.
Research Program
My research investigates how large infrastructures reshape historical landscapes, producing new regimes of archaeological knowledge, memory, and historical visibility.
My work examines how projects of development—particularly dams—transform historical environments and reorganize the ways societies relate to the past. Working at the intersection of archaeology, anthropology, and critical heritage studies, I study how infrastructures reshape temporal horizons, displace historical landscapes, and generate new forms of archaeological knowledge.
Much of my research focuses on eastern Turkey, where a series of mega-dams built on the Euphrates and Tigris rivers since the 1960s have inundated vast territories. These projects triggered some of the largest archaeological rescue operations of the twentieth century, mobilizing international teams of archaeologists, architects, and historians tasked with documenting landscapes destined to disappear beneath reservoirs.
Across this work, I am particularly interested in the relationships between infrastructure, memory, and historical visibility—how certain pasts are documented, displaced, or submerged in the course of development, including histories that remain partially submerged.
This research has appeared in journals such as Journal of European Studies, Kurdish Studies, L’espace politique, Revue des sciences sociales, Bulletin of the History of Archaeology, International Journal of Heritage Studies, Current Anthropology, and Etudes arméniennes contemoraines.
Other Current Projects
Conscience Project / Handbook of Conscience
A second research project explores the concept of ‘conscience‘ as a cultural and political category across different societies and historical contexts. Developed in collaboration with an international network of scholars, this project examines how conscience is expressed, cultivated, and mobilized in fields such as memory studies, heritage preservation, transitional justice, and cultural activism.
This work includes the development of the Handbook of Conscience, an interdisciplinary volume bringing together scholars from anthropology, philosophy, history, literature, and political theory to explore conscience as a social practice and moral infrastructure.
Earlier Research
Keban Dam
A long-term strand of my research focuses on the Keban Dam (1966–1974), Turkey’s first mega-dam on the Upper Euphrates and one of the largest infrastructure projects undertaken in the country during the Cold War. This work investigates the cultural, archaeological, and political consequences of the dam’s construction, including the large-scale rescue excavations carried out in the region and the transformation of the surrounding historical landscape.
Hasankeyf and Ilısu
My research has examined the destruction and partial relocation of the historic town of Hasankeyf during the construction of the Ilısu Dam on the Tigris River. Combining archaeological, ethnographic, and historical perspectives, this work explores how heritage preservation, environmental activism, and development policies intersect in contested landscapes.
Heritage Destruction in Diyarbakır
Another strand of my work focuses on the destruction and reconstruction of the historic district of Sur in Diyarbakır following the armed conflict of 2015–2016. This research investigates how urban heritage becomes entangled with questions of political violence, human rights, and historical memory.
