Turkey’s lands and waters have been a crossroads of civilization for millennia, and the Institute of Nautical Archaeology has been privileged and fortunate to work, under permit from the government, for decades in Turkey. Our strongest partnership and our oldest relationship is with the people of Turkey.
INA has two partners in Turkey: the Turkish Institute of Nautical Archaeology (TINA) and the Bodrum Museum of Underwater Archaeology. INA enjoys a working partnership in Turkey with TINA on a variety of projects - surveys and documentation of wrecks important to Turkey’s more modern history, including the naval losses off Cannakale (Gallipoli) from World War I’s epic battles. Through the efforts of its President, Oğuz Aydemir, TINA has also published a series of outstanding books on Turkish naval history.
The other partnership is with the Bodrum Museum of Underwater Archaeology, a government institution that INA helped found and build. Established in St. Peter’s Castle in 1962, it is now the most popular archaeological museum in the country with over 250,000 paying visitors each year.