Doç. Dr. BANU ÖZDİLEK TIBIKOĞLU

Associate Professor Dr. Banu Özdilek has been a faculty member in the Department of Archaeology, Department of Classical Archaeology, at Hatay Mustafa Kemal University since

2012. She has served as the scientific consultant for the Issos–Epiphaneia Archaeological Excavations and Surveys in Hatay–Erzin during the 2022, 2023, and 2024 seasons. As of 2025,

the Issos–Epiphaneia Excavation has gained the status of a Presidential Decree Excavation, and she has been appointed as the excavation director beginning that year. In January 2025, she

became one of the founding members of the Issos Archaeology, Cultural and Natural Heritage Conservation Association established in Hatay–Erzin. Özdilek completed her BA, MA, and PhD degrees at Akdeniz University, Department of Archaeology, in Antalya. Between 2004 and 2011, she worked as a research assistant at the same department. Her doctoral dissertation focused on the Rhodiapolis Theatre and Lycian Theatres, and she received her PhD degree in 2011. During her doctoral studies, she was awarded a research scholarship from the Ausonius Institute for Ancient and Medieval Studies at Université Bordeaux Montaigne. She has also taught courses on Hatay Archaeology at Università degli Studi di Cassino. In 2024, she lectured at Université Polytechnique Hauts-de- France in Valenciennes on Hatay Archaeology, Cultural Heritage, and the Ancient City of ssos-Epiphaneia. Since 2000, Özdilek has participated as a scientific team member in major excavations across the Lycian Region, including Patara, Tlos, Beydağları, Xanthos, Letoon, Rhodiapolis, and Myra-Andriake. She has been directing the excavations at Issos-Epiphaneia since 2022. Her scholarly work includes numerous articles on ancient architecture of Lycia, as well as Hellenistic and Roman period pottery from Andriake and Letoon. She has served as the editor

of one book and as the curator of the permanent exhibition “Arkeoloji Yolculuğunda Hatay” (Hatay on the Journey of Archaeology). Together with Onur Tıbıkoğlu, she is the designer and

patent holder of Co-Existence, the world’s largest floor mosaic, recognized by Guinness World Records. Her research interests include ancient theatres, Hellenistic and Roman ceramics, cult practices, and Roman mosaics. Özdilek was awarded a fellowship from Koç University ANAMED (2023–2024) for the project “Traces of the Earthquake at Issos-Epiphaneia: Archaeoseismic Studies and Earthquake- Resistant Ancient Urban Planning in Light of Archaeological-Geological and Epigraphic Evidence.” She also received funding in 2023 from Koç University AKMED and the German

Archaeological Institute in Munich for the project “Hatay Province Ancient Period Earthquakes.” In the same year, she earned a fellowship from the British Institute at Ankara for the project “Traces of the Earthquake at Issos-Epiphaneia: Archaeoseismic Studies and Architectural Conservation, Inventory, Archive, Memory, and Digital Database Studies.”

 In 2024, she was awarded a research fellowship from the German Archaeological Institute in Munich for the Issos-Epiphaneia Excavation and Research Project. She participated in a workshop at the University of Stuttgart’s Institute of Historical Research on topics related to Issos-Epiphaneia Bouleuterion. In 2025, she presented on Antioch mosaics in Lagos, Portugal,

and gave a talk on “Digitization of Antioch Mosaics After the Earthquake” at ASOR in the United States. She also conducted library research with a fellowship at the German

Archaeological Institute in Munich and received a symposium travel grant from the University of Groningen MARE project (Netherlands), where she presented on the necropoleis of Pisidia-

Neapolis in Chania, Greece. In 2025, the First International Interdisciplinary Issos Symposium was held, presenting theresults of four years of Issos-Epiphaneia excavations. In the same year, the “Children of Hatay Issos Mosaic Children’s Workshop,” funded by the United States, was successfully carried out. In 2025, the unique world calendar mosaic’s eleventh month the September panel was uncovered. In 2026, a peer-reviewed and indexed article on this mosaic will be published. Additionally, she co-authored an international ethnoarchaeological article on olives in Hatay

from prehistory to the present. One of the projects undertaken in 2025 is the consultancy for the survey and restitution project of the Limyra Theater in the Lycian Region.