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Nurcan Yalman

Nisantasi University

Assistant Professor

Country: Turkey

ITP Year: 2017

Biography

Nurcan is an experienced prehistorian/archaeologist based in Istanbul. She completed her PhD on ethno-archaeology at the Istanbul University in 2005. Nurcan has taken part in many excavation projects, including her longest serving project Çatalhöyük (1994-2011). She was appointed as the scientific supervisor/curator of the exhibition From Earth to Eternity: Çatalhöyük in Istanbul and has participated in various stages of the exhibition, making decisions on the archaeological display, the theme, the usage of visual media, the selection of the archaeological material and on the design process of the exhibitions (2005-6).

She has given several courses on archaeology in Kadir Has University and Mimar Sinan University, and many seminars and conferences on related subjects. Currently she works at Istanbul Ni?anta?? University, Department of History as assistant professor and gives four courses (Archaeology I-II, History of Religion, Seminars on the Ancient History, History of Culture Institutions) here.

Since 2011, she has been focusing on cultural heritage studies (mainly interested in the community engagement) and joined the projects of CIE-Center for International Heritage Activities in Leiden, The Netherlands. Nurcan has worked with CIE as an advisor for a number of years and has taken a leading role in many of the field schools and identification missions such as those in Sri Lanka and Tanzania. She was also involved in developing sustainable heritage education programmes in Turkey and Tanzania.

Nurcan served as an Executive Board Member for the European Association of Archaeologists and was appointed as the vice president from 2013-2016. She is also on the Board of Trustees for the Cultural Awareness Foundation in Istanbul. Currently Nurcan teaches archaeology classes within a program called Archaeology for Everyone for non-academic adults.

Nurcan has also conducted an intangible heritage project in Istanbul titled Bazaars and Stories in the Istanbul Grand Bazaar together with CIE and Cultural Awareness Foundation, with a small team consisting of four students.

Currently Nurcan works as an Assistant Professor, lecturing on subjects including archaeology, history of religion and history of cultural institutions.

At the British Museum
During her time on the International Training Programme 2017, Nurcan was based in the Department of Greece and Rome and spent her partner placement at Tyne and Wear Archives and Museums in Newcastle.

In 2017 participants were asked to develop a proposal for an Asahi Shimbun Display – a temporary exhibition in Room 3 at the British Museum – based around a ‘spotlight’ object.  Nurcan’s exhibition proposal project was entitled The Domestication of Fear.

 

ITP Newsletter Publications
ITP Newsletter Issue 8 (2021) Bulletin board: Bread making at home during COVID-19: a subject for future research