The idea of “Friends of Aşıklı” was born during a trip to Aşıklı in July 2018 by a small group of “curious” people, encouraged by Demet Güral and Alev Tezer Çağlar who were old friends of Prof.Mihriban Özbaşaran, head of the excavation and had visited the site many times. We were told that “we wouldn’t regret the effort!”.
Next summer, in 2019 we visited Aşıklı again, only this time it was a bigger group, mainly high school friends of Mihriban and Alev. In both visits we were fascinated and learned a lot.
Headed by Mihriban, Güneş, Nurcan and the excavation team all our questions were answered. At the excavation house and the laboratories, expert archeologists from all around the world explained us, very patiently, their methodologies in tracking daily lives of the Aşıklı community and the research techniques they used.
We admired the team of researchers as much as Aşıklı as we their dedication and motivation. It was an amazing experience to watch them working under the scorching mid-Anatolian summer sun, all smeared in dust and unearthing the soil by square centimeters to go back in centuries. This fathomless work is definetly like “digging a well with a needle”!
The most impressive fact was to witness the “ hearth of science” created by these scientists from different parts of the world in an excavation house, situated at the outskirts of a small mid-Anatolian village and see them learning from each other as they worked and shared all they knew and found with “curious people” like us.
“AIt was under this admiration that led us to decide to gather and establish “Friends of Aşıklı Society” as an association.
