Muhibbe Darga, one of Turkey’s first woman archeologists, laid to rest

ISTANBUL

One of Turkey’s first female archeologists, Prof. Dr. Muhibbe Darga, was laid to rest in Istanbul on March 7 after dying at the age of 97.

Darga left her mark in the field of archeology, Hittitology and linguistics.

Her family, colleagues and students attended the funeral. Nazan Ölçer, the head of Istanbul’s Sakıp Sabancı Museum, expressed her sadness at the loss of Darga, Turkish media outlets reported on March 7.

“She was a unique professor who taught her students about life itself,” Ölçer said.

Darga was granddaughter of Darugazade Mehmet Emin Bey, who was Sultan Abdülhamit II’s first chamberlain. Later, because of her father’s professional obligations as a doctor, she traveled through Anatolia in the 1930s with her family.

After graduating from Istanbul University’s Department of Archeology, she became a doctor in 1947 and a professor in 1973.

She also attended several excavations, including the Şemsiyetepe historical site in the southeast of Turkey, which is now under water after a regional dam construction; and Dorylaion, a Phrygian-Hittite settlement located in the Central Anatolian province of Eskişehir.

Darga gave many lectures in Turkey and abroad. She was also an honorary member of Turkish Antiquities’ Sciences Institute and a reporting member of the German Archeological Institute.