Murat Dirican is a postdoc at the Faculty of Archaeology.

More information about Murat Dirican

Current research

The research that the researcher will conduct at Leiden University is called TAS (Testimony of stones: a new method in ancient traffic analysis). This research supported by Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions (MSCA), seeks to comprehend ancient traffic flow between different areas by pioneering new research methods. It will use experimental methods such as rock mechanics and experimental archaeology to determine abrasion resistance data. Additionally, the project will develop an agent-based model to analyze movement within ancient urban spaces and explore emergent characteristics of urban traffic. TAS also aims to mitigate physical threats to cultural heritage through a novel risk assessment approach.

Curriculum vitae

Murat Dirican holds an MA from the Archaeometry Department of Middle East Technical University (METU)-Ankara/Turkey, where he focused on Hellenistic period amphora production workshops and the provenance of ceramics, and a PhD from the same department, with research focused on Halafian ceramics and chlorite stone vessels. Through this research, he gained knowledge and experience about the production processes and provenance of ceramic and stone finds (obsidian, marble, basalt, chloritoid, etc.). He then participated in many archaeological excavation projects for nearly ten years.

Recently studied marble provenance at the Austrian Archeological Institute for two years with a TÜBİTAK (The Scientific and Technological Research Council of Türkiye) post-doctoral research fellowship. There he carried out a project on “Determining the raw material properties of some Pamphylian sarcophagi and investigating the possible sources of their raw materials in the historical Pamphylia.”

His latest post-doc research (title: On the trail of group 3D: A lost prehistoric obsidian quarry in the Near East) concerns obsidian provenance which is supported by a Koç University (Istanbul/Turkey) Research Center for Anatolian Civilizations (ANAMED). In this project, he used geochemical data to try to pinpoint a prehistoric obsidian source referred to as the 3D source in the literatüre-the location of which has remained unknown to this day.

Office days

Monday, Wednesday, Friday.