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Rural Architectural Documentation and Conservation Program

Project Team

Dr. Asil YAMAN

Director of the Project, Archaeologist, Penn Museum

M. Rümeysa ÇAKAN

Architect, MA.

Within the scope of the Project, it is envisaged that the traditional residential architecture, windmills, cistern structures, agricultural terraces and religious sites of Taşlıca (Fenaket), Söğüt, and Aziziye (Karamaka) villages located in the territory of the Phoenix Ancient City will be documented and protection-repair projects are prepared for the buildings. The program aims to record the tangible and intangible cultural values of the region, to increase awareness of the traditional architectural texture, and to keep our common heritage alive.

Rural areas subject to the Project are located on the borders of Marmaris District Bozburun Peninsula, where domestic and foreign tourism is intense. Therefore, they are open to destruction due to population growth and irregular construction. In Taşlıca and Söğüt villages, where human and natural destruction continues today and under threat of structuring, no study on traditional architecture has been conducted before. In order to protect the local texture, which is losing its unique identity day by day, holistic and sustainable conservation strategies will be determined by using basic working methods in the field of architecture.

During the Project, the main body of the documentation studies is to take the survey, including the facade and section drawings, of the traditional architectural elements in Taşlıca (Fenaket), Söğüt and Aziziye (Karamaka) villages, and to make detailed descriptions and take detailed photos. Methods such as digitizing the data obtained from field studies through programs such as Autocad and making an inventory by processing it into a digital database will be applied. It is aimed to manage this process with a scientific team consisting of different disciplines in order to keep historical and local values alive and to make them sustainable.

After implementing conservation-restoration projects, preparing national and international scientific publications at the end of the Project and bringing the region to the world of science is expected. Another important expectation is to create a cultural route for the villages that are the subject of the Project by considering the preserved villages in Europe that display the image of an Open Air Museum and examples that keep the social memory alive, such as Fethiye Kayaköy from our country. The other step of the Project is the realization of agro-tourism in our villages based on agricultural production. Thus, the development of the economically underdeveloped rural areas in the region will be provided and the welfare level of the local people will be increased.

Asil Yaman is faculty at Villanova University and serving as consulting professor at the Mediterranean section of Penn Museum. Previously he was a research assistant at the Muğla Sıtkı Koçman University (Turkey), where he worked there for seven years. He has been excavating in the eastern Mediterranean since 2003, working on various field projects in Turkey. He focuses on the material culture such as late roman pottery, food culture, and trade relations between the Levant and Anatolia in late antiquity.

Currently, he is investigating the archaeology of Carian Chersonese, which is part of his post-doc project and directing the Phoenix Archaeological Project (PAP). He has also been serving as co-editor of the Levantine Ceramics Project (LCP) since 2018. Asil received the research grant of the American Research Institute in Turkey (ARIT) in 2018 and project grant of th Hellenic College, Mary Jaharis Center for Byzantine Art and Culture.

His teaching repertory includes courses such as; ‘The Archaeology of Religion and Rituals’, ‘Anatolian Archaeology’, ‘The war between the East and West in Archaeological and Historical perspectives’, and ‘Asia Minor in Late Antiquity’ at both undergraduate and graduate level.

Aslıhan Güçlü graduated from Ege University, Department of Classical Archeology, and from Dokuz Eylül University, Faculty of Fine Arts, Department of Photography. After completing her master’s degree in Art and Design at the same university, she continues her doctoral studies in the photography department. With the ‘Sümerbank’ selection at IFSAK 2nd Young Photographers Festival in 2007, with the project ‘Flowers of Evil’ at the ‘Beyond Experience’ exhibition held at Pera Museum in 2012, ‘Never Changed’ series in the second edition of Mamut Art Project in 2014, 2016 In the year III. He took part in the Fotoistanbul Photography Festival with the “The Loss of Adam” project. In 2018, she participated in exhibitions at K2 Contemporary Art Center and Izmir Painting and Sculpture Museum with her photography and video works named ‘Manifesto’ and ‘Nihil’. With the start of the pandemic, Aslıhan Güçlü, who took part in the Izole Project together with invited artists from many cities, especially Istanbul, is also one of the participating artists of the Mahalle İzmir project carried out by GAPO. In her artistic works, she focuses on the relations between the human-altered geographies, cultural memory and the individual, while focusing on ordinary events in daily life. In addition, she continues her studies on gender and body abstraction. In addition, she took part in Daskyleion, Phokaia, Aigai, Hisarönü Çubucak Antique Ceramic Workshops excavations and Myrina and Gryneion surveys.