On October 20, leading archaeologists of the Turkic world gathered at Hacettepe University in Ankara. Ahead of the Second Meeting of the Association of Research Institutes and Centers of Turkic World Archaeology (ARICA), which will take place in Gaziantep, participants visited the university’s scientific facilities — the Anthropology Laboratory and the HÜNİTEK Laboratory.
The event was attended by President of the Turkic Academy Shahin Mustafayev, Rector of Hacettepe University Mehmet Cahit Güran, President of the Turkish Historical Society Yüksel Özgen, President of the Atatürk Supreme Council for Culture, Language and History Derya Örs, as well as archaeologists and scholars from across the Turkic world.
The visit to the laboratories continued an initiative proposed by President of the Turkic Academy, Prof. Dr. Shahin Mustafayev, during the founding meeting of ARICA held in Samarkand in 2023. At that time, the head of the Academy raised the issue of the scientific and technological sovereignty of Turkic countries, emphasizing that the absence of sufficient local laboratory infrastructure often forces researchers to send archaeological findings for analysis abroad, beyond the member states of the Organization of Turkic States (OTS).
The cooperation between the Turkic Academy and Hacettepe University has since been successfully developing in practice. In 2024, archaeological materials discovered during an expedition in the Mangystau region of Kazakhstan were sent to Hacettepe University for archaeogenetic and anthropological research.
“We must strengthen our own scientific infrastructure and conduct world-class research within our countries. This is not only a matter of scientific progress but also of cultural sovereignty. Today, our scientists are not just uncovering artifacts — they are reconstructing the faces and lives of people who lived a thousand years ago,”
- noted Mustafayev.
He also emphasized that the establishment of the Association of Research Institutes and Centers of Turkic World Archaeology (ARICA) marked an important step toward creating a unified scientific and informational space, where scholars from Turkic countries can speak a common professional language and together open new pages of shared history.
