Burak BELGE1 | Züleyha Sara BELGE2
(1Mersin University, The Faculty of Architecture, The Department of City and Regional Planning, Mersin / 2Mersin University, Faculty of Architecture, the Department of City and Regional Planning, Mersin, Turkey)
Abstract:
In Turkey, urban archaeological resources could not be handled in the planning process because of inadequacy in spatial documentations. Therefore, archaeological deposits could be seen as problem areas in urban development that is directly related with financial, administrative and legal limitations. Then, urban archaeological resources not only sub-soil resources, even monumental sites, could not be integrated into urban daily life. Most of the citizens are not aware of archaeological stratification beneath their foot.
Therefore, ongoing research project in Tarsus since 2013, which is co-financed by “The Scientific and Technological Research Council of Turkey (TUBITAK)”, primarily aims to develop a method to handle urban archaeological – especially sub-soil archaeological- resources into urban conservation planning process of multi-layered historic city centres in Turkey. In the scope of project, firstly, an Urban Archaeological Database has been prepared by primary and secondary data sets.
By the way, on the one hand, planners could be informed, award and equipped about urban archaeological potential at the earliest stages of planning process. The research method bases on to define probable conserved urban archaeological deposits. Therefore, ideal urban archaeological potential, whole or partial destruction and the quality of archaeological deposit were evaluated. Consequently, urban archaeological character zones, strategy zones in planning, are determined.
On the other hand, urban archaeological character zones let to re-evaluate archaeological strata in urban daily life. The result and outcomes of are disseminated to public by official web-site of research project. Moreover, a series of workshops have been applied to gather planners, archaeologist and architectures with local authorities, bureaucrats and actors to create a multiplier-effect in public. This paper especially presents the results and discussions in public workshops and student ateliers that are new platform for urban conservation planning agenda in Turkey.
Keywords: Urban Archaeology, Daily Life, Urban Archaeological Character Zone, Tarsus Historic City Centre, Urban Conservation Planning, Urban Archaeological Database