About the Department
Regarding the archaeological importance of the Aegean Region, the Institute of Archaeology within Ege University was established on 27th November 1962 and got into operation on 18th March 1964. During this period, the institute provided staff and gave financial support to the archaeological researches held by Ankara and Istanbul Universities and the excavations carried out in the Aegean Region, such as Teos, Pitane, Bayraklı (Old Smyrna) and Bodrum (Halikarnassos). The nub of the library of Archaeology which is currently held in the Central Library of Ege University, was constituted by the establishment of an institute library in this period. The Institute of Archaeology played an important role for the management of the Xth International Congress of Classical Archaeology in 1973 in Izmir. The first director of the Institute was Prof. Dr. Celal Saraç. In 1976, by the foundation of “The Faculty of Social Sciences” which would be named afterwards as “Faculty of Letters”, the Institute of Archaeology joined to this faculty under the chairmanship of Prof. Dr. Mükerrem Usman Anabolu. In the same period, within the Faculty of Social Sciences, Department of History- Geography and Archaeology was founded by Prof. Dr. Mükerrem Usman Anabolu. In 7th May 1979, the academic organization of the Faculty of Letters was reshaped and “Department of Archaeology” became an independent unit. In 1994 under the chairmanship of Prof. Dr. Tomris Bakır, the Department of Archaeology was consisted of two disciplines: Classical Archeology headed by Prof. Dr. T. Bakır and Near Eastern Archaeology headed by Prof. Dr. Altan Çilingiroğlu.
The aim of the programme is to educate future archaeologists, researchers and academics who has analytic way of thinking by following the current research and techniques to conduct archeological excavations and surveys in Turkey. The education language of the archaeology department is Turkish.
The Department of Archaeology, currently, trains in the disciplines of Classical and Near Eastern Archaeology. An academic year of the Faculty of Letters consists of two semesters of fifteen weeks. The undergraduate program of the department of Archaeology is completed in four years(eight semesters). To graduate from the department, the students by fulfilling all the courses given in eight semesters have undergraduate degree and are entitled an archaeologist. The courses and the tests are compulsory. The courses, %70 of which are obligatory to attend, are assessed by written examinations, seminars and presentations. One midterm exam and one final exam are hold in each semester. The dates of the examinations are announced by the department. During the undergraduate program, the students have an opportunity to join the archaeological researches and the excavations conducted by the department and to make practices. Besides the undergraduate program, programs of graduate (M.A.) and PhD degrees are offered. Five professors, seven associated professors, four assistant professors and one lecturer, ten research assistants are staffed in the department.
