Towards a Common Ground: Digital Data and Community Engagement in Turkey

Approximately 200 excavations and 100 surveys take place in Turkey every year. The archaeological teams and the Ministry of Culture and Tourism both share information digitally. The proceedings of the Annual Excavation Results Meeting, held continuously since 1979, are readily available, as are the lists of all the archaeological excavations and field surveys permitted since 2006, grouped annually. For projects, websites are becoming more common in disseminating information to the public. The teams use them to share newsletters, scientific excavation reports, sometimes databases, photos, updates about projects, etc. Some use blogs to keep followers/visitors up-to-date during excavation seasons. However, interactivity or engagement does not appear to be a key priority. And, surprisingly, some of the longer-running projects have neither websites, nor any digital means of communication or information-sharing. Where these do exist, as in the case of some foreign-run archaeological excavations, it may be that the information is not bilingual – i.e. there is no Turkish version. But are these means and levels of communication sufficient to generate interest in these archaeological sites? Is simply ‘publishing information on websites’ enough for hands-on communicative archaeology? Should there be other, digital means through which local people can use the data being generated? How can the requirement for ‘public outreach’ be made real and more than simply an exercise in ticking boxes?