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Profile

Research Interests

• Byzantine archaeology and architecture
• Archaeology of Medieval Anatolia and Constantinople
• Landscape archaeology 
• Provenance Research
• Historiography of Archaeology
• Cultural Heritage
• Public Archaeology
• Museology
  

Education

• PhD, Columbia University (USA)
• MA, Koc University (Turkey)
• BA, Istanbul University (Turkey)

Biography

Ayse Ercan Kydonakis is a field archaeologist, and earned her PhD degree in Early Christian and Byzantine archaeology and art history from Columbia University in New York in May 2022. Her academic focus, within the broader geographical context of the Medieval Mediterranean world, centers on the material culture of Late Antique and Byzantine-period cities, harbours and frontier settlements in Medieval Anatolia, as well as the afterlives of this period’s archaeological heritage in the Seljuk, Ottoman and Turkish periods. In addition to her primary field of research in Byzantine archaeology, she has also conducted research on provenance studies, public archaeology, cultural heritage policies related to Byzantium, as well as the historiography of archaeology both in Turkey and Greece. Her works explores the evolution of archaeological practices and the intricate dynamics of cultural heritage politics, examining how archaeology has been strategically employed to construct political discourses related to the reimagining imperial states and nation-making processes in both countries. Currently, she is working on the material culture of Medieval frontier cities in Central Anatolia to provide a deeper understanding of the historical, social, and economic dynamics in the region between Late Antiquity and the Beylik period (ca. 200–1400 CE). As a postdoctoral research fellow at the SNF Centre for Hellenic Studies at ¶¡ÏãÔ°AV, she will work on a publication based on her recent archaeological fieldwork, focusing on the material remains of Philomelion, a frontier town in central Anatolia situated between the Byzantine and Seljuk realms. Using Philomelion as a case study, her research aims to gain insights into the social, religious, and economic life of medieval Anatolia from the tenth to thirteenth centuries.