Porsuk - Zeyve Höyük archaeological mission (Southern Cappadocia, Turkey)
Claire Barat, Senior Lecturer at the Université Polytechnique Hauts-de-France, headed one of the 160 French archaeological missions abroad supported by the Consultative Commission for Archaeological Research of the Ministry of Europe and Foreign Affairs for seven years.
The Porsuk - Zeyve Höyük archaeological mission was the oldest French archaeological mission in Turkey. Zeyve Höyük is an exceptional Hittite site, dating back more than 3,500 years, and preserving the remains of a mud-brick fortification sometimes more than eight meters high. This fortified site was inhabited until the Middle Ages, and provides an opportunity to study long-term settlement and land use in the southern Cappadocian region at the foot of the Taurus Mountains.
From 2016 to 2023, Claire Barat led an international, multidisciplinary team of researchers specializing in hard sciences and the humanities and social sciences: archaeology, ceramology, topography, architecture, drone flight, Lidar, photogrammetry, paleo-environmental studies, anthropology, C14 dating,3D reconstructions. It has forged partnerships with the following universities: New York University, Universities of Pavia, Padua and Verona (Italy), Universities of Nevşehir and Hacettepe of Ankara (Turkey), University of Lille.
She has developed a project to conserve the remains of the site's raw earth fortifications in collaboration with the CRAterre laboratory (École Nationale Supérieure d'Architecture de Grenoble), renowned worldwide for its expertise in raw earth architecture. http://craterre.org/
In this project, she questioned notions of heritage conservation and (tourist) enhancement in relation to local and regional development.
Through this mission, Claire Barat has contributed to the influence of French archaeology abroad and to that of the Université Polytechnique Hauts-de-France.
https://www.lefigaro.fr/culture/en-anatolie-les-archeologues-francais-au-chevet-de-la-forteresse-hittite-de-porsuk-20210821
https://www.lefigaro.fr/culture/patrimoine/en-turquie-une-mission-francaise-decouvre-une-enceinte-perse-dans-une-forteresse-hittite-20220826
About Claire Barat's activities
Lecturer since 2008 at UPHF, Claire Barat is a member of the LARSH research laboratory (CRISS Department).
Since her doctoral thesis in 2006, she has been pursuing field research on the history and archaeology of Anatolia (Turkey), from the Black Sea to the Gates of Cilicia.
Her teaching is backed up by her research, and she thus provides UPHF students, within the Bachelor of History-Geography and the Master Patrimoine et Ressources Territoriales, as well as through the Polytechnic Modules Archéo-Matériaux and Archéo-Surfaces and the Module d'Ouverture Lire les écritures anciennes, with teaching on coins, inscriptions, ancient materials and surfaces (buildings, paintings, mud bricks), the history of the archaeological discipline.
