Staff Profiles

Isabelle Aerts joined the Sagalassos Archaeological Research Project in April 2008 as management-assistant. She takes care of all administrative matters, including all financial and commercial aspects.

Dr. Philip Bes defended his Ph.D. on the distribution and consumption of tablewares in the Roman East in 2007. This research was carried out in the framework of the ICRATES Project, in the course of which a database was compiled that includes the majority of published evidence for tablewares in the Roman East. Since 2008 he is post-doctoral researcher within the Sagalassos Project involved in the restudy and analyses of previously excavated pottery, as well as the identification and significance of imported pottery (mainly amphorae). Fieldwork includes the excavations at Sagalassos and Kinet Höyük (both in Turkey) and the Boeotia Survey (Greece).

Markku Corremans is a Ph.D. student preparing a dissertation in the framework of a project on 'Roman and early-Byzantine provincial towns as production-, consumption- and distribution centres. A case study: Sagalassos and its territory'. As such, he is currently conducting research on the import of stone as a building material. He has a master in commercial engineering (1996) from the Vrije Universiteit Brussel and a master in archaeology (2004) from the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven.

Bea De Cupere works within the Archaeozoology Unit of the Museum of Natural Sciences (Brussels) and has been studying the animal bones of Sagalassos since 1992. After obtaining her Ph.D. in 1998, she also studied animal bones from other Near Eastern sites.

Dr. Véronique De Laet studied physical geography at the K.U.Leuven and made her Msc-thesis on the geomorphology of the broader area around the site of Sagalassos using GIS techniques. She obtained a Ph. D. in 2007 on the evolution of the geo-archaeological landscape at Sagalassos: integration of geomorphic, GIS and remote sensing methods. Since April 2007, she is researcher at the Centre for Archaeological Sciences and her main focus is on the application of GIS and remote sensing techniques to geo-archaeology.

Patrick Degryse is professor of archaeometry in the geology section of the Centre for Archaeological Sciences at the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven. His research focuses on the history, use, and technology of ancient mineral raw materials and artifacts.

Semih Ercan, a civil engineer (Middle East Technical University, Ankara) with a masters from the Raymond Lemaire Centre for Conservation at the KULeuven, specializes in stone conservation techniques. He completed the conservation of the Late Hellenistic Nymphaeum and the Neon Library with T. Patricio, and he has been directing the conservation of the Antonine Nymphaeum since 1998. Semih also works as an independent architectural conservation specialist and has participated in different projects in the UK, Turkey, and Ukraine.

Dr. Ine Jacobs is a post-doctoral researcher of the Research-Foundation Flanders. She obtained her doctoral degree with a dissertation on aesthetic maintenance of late antique cities in the Eastern Mediterranean. Nowadays, she is trying to convince archaeologists and historians of the prosperity of the Theodosian period (AD 397-450), drawing mainly on archaeological, but also epigraphic and iconographic sources. At Sagalassos, she excavates the North-South Colonnaded Street, the Apollo Klarios area and the fortifications.

Dr. Veerle Lauwers is a post-doctoral researcher working on the glass of Sagalassos, specialized in the field of interaction between geochemical and typo-chronological data. Additionally she has a special interest in depotmanagement. She worked at several Gallo-Roman sites in Belgium during her studies in archaeology at the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven. After having obtained a Master in Eastern Mediterranean Archaeology, she spent some time studying Minoan ceramics in Crete (Palaikastro). She also participated in projects in Egypt (Wadi Natron) and Jordan (Petra and Ummadijah). Recently she turned back to Belgium archaeology where she is managing community archaeology.

Dr. Femke Martens has studied archaeology at the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven (1996) and conservation of ancient monuments and landscapes at the Henry van de Velde Instituut in Antwerp (1997). She finished a Ph.D. (2004) focusing on the urban development of Sagalassos from the Hellenistic period to the mid-seventh century A.D. She has been participating in the excavations at Sagalassos since 1994 and supervised the intensive urban survey (1999-2005), reconstructing the functional organization and chronological evolution of the urban area's occupation. Her postdoctoral research focuses on the urban infrastructure (network of streets and water network), for which a programme of test soundings and geophysical survey is being carried out.

Philippe Muchez is a professor at the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven and heads the ore geology and geofluids research unit. He obtained his Ph.D. at the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven and was a post-doctoral fellow at the University of Liverpool and University of Amsterdam. He has been undertaking geological surveys at Sagalassos since 1996, focusing on building stones, mineral occurrences, and the use of calcite precipitates in neotectonic studies.

Etienne Paulissen is a professor of geomorphology at the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven specializing in the evolution of physical environment on different time scales. He has participated in the Sagalassos Project since 1991 and focuses on the colluviation/alluviation history, the significance of catastrophic and abrupt climatic events, and the human impact for the last 7,000 years.

Prof. Dr. Jeroen Poblome is a professor of archaeology at the Katholieke Universitieit Leuven and a member of the Sagalassos Archaeological Research Project. He specializes in artisanal production mechanisms and exchange patterns in the eastern Mediterranean from the late Hellenistic to early Byzantine periods, and initiated the ICRATES project with these aims in mind.

Dr. Julian Richard studied archaeology at the Facultés Universitaires Notre-Dame de la Paix (Namur, 1999-2001), at the Université Catholique de Louvain (2001-2003) and at the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven (Master of Arts in Eastern Mediterranean Archaeology, 2004). From 2004 to 2008, he worked as a PhD student for the Sagalassos Archaeological Research Project at the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven. His research focused upon the utilitarian and representative functions of Roman monumental fountains in the urban centres of the Eastern Roman provinces.

He is now postdoctoral researcher for the Sagalassos Archaeological Research Project. His research focuses upon the contextual and representative aspects of Roman public architecture in the Eastern Mediterranean. Since 2005, he is also participating in the excavations at Sagalassos, as site supervisor of the Macellum (food market) of the city. He also collaborates to the research of Dr. Femke Martens on the reconstruction of the city's water distribution network.

Joeri Theelen obtained his B.Sc. in Informatics at the Limburg Universitair Centrum in 1993 and his B.Sc./M.Sc. in Geography at the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven in 1998. For a decade, he worked with several private companies involved in GIS-related businesses. In June 2008, he joined the Sagalassos Archaeological Research Project as a GIS coordinator. He is responsible for the management and maintenance of all spatial information like geodetic measurements, topographical maps and architectural plans. He also helps his colleagues in using this information in scientific research. Joeri is also responsible for many ICT related tasks such as the management of the Sagalassos Integrated Information System (SIIS) and the maintenance of several websites.

Ebru Torun is an architect, graduate of the Middle East Technical University in Ankara. In 1995, she obtained her master degree in conservation from the Raymond Lemaire International Centre for Conservation (RLICC) at the University of Leuven, with a dissertation and a conservation project on the Casa Botter, an Art Nouveau building in Istanbul. A summer-training in 1994 at the site of Sagalassos caused a shift in her professional focus from the 19th/20th architecture towards archaeology. She joined the Sagalassos Archaeological Research Project in 1998. First being occupied with the anastylosis project of the Northwest Heroon for several years, she became responsible for the architectural conservation and documentation on the site in 2005. Since 2008, as the site manager, together with Prof. Waelkens, she is working to transform the conservation practice at Sagalassos into an archaeological heritage management process, in collaboration with the authorities and a wide range of stakeholders.

Dr. Inge Uytterhoeven studied Classical Philology (MA 1995) and Archaeology (MA 1998) at the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven - Belgium. From 1998 to 2002 she was as a PhD student connected with the 'Historical Topography of the Fayum in the Graeco-Roman Period' Project under the direction of Prof. Dr. Willy Clarysse (Ancient History - Katholieke Universiteit Leuven - Belgium). In March 2003 she obtained her PhD degree with a dissertation dedicated to the Graeco-Roman village and necropolis of Hawara in the Egyptian Fayum (Hawara in the Graeco-Roman Period. Life and Death in a Fayum Village), which was based upon the combined study of archaeological, literary, epigraphical and papyrological data.

In 1997 she started participating with the excavations at Sagalassos. After she worked one campaign on the Upper Agora North and Bouleuterion sites, she has since 1998 been supervising the excavations of the late antique urban mansion in the eastern domestic area of Sagalassos. From October 2002 onwards she has been fully involved with the Sagalassos Archaeological Research Project as a post-doctoral researcher. During her first mandate as Post-doctoral Fellow of the Research Council Flanders - Belgium (2003-2008) she focused on late antique urban housing in Asia Minor taking the urban mansion of Sagalassos as a starting point. The central theme of her current, second mandate as Post-doctoral Fellow (2008-2011) is the study of early Roman housing in the Eastern Mediterranean as a possible indicator for a common 'Imperial ('Roman') culture' in this area. During the academic year 2008-2009 she is carrying out her research at the Deutsches Archäologisches Institut in Istanbul - Turkey.

Wim Van Neer has been supervising the animal bone studies at Sagalassos since 1991. He directs the Archaeozoology Unit of the Museum of Natural Sciences (Brussels) and is a part-time lecturer in the post-graduate Eastern Mediterranean Archaeology program at the KULeuven. He has studied animal bones in Africa, the Near East, and Belgium since 1976. Fish are his favorite animals.

Dr. Hannelore Vanhaverbeke obtained her Ph.D. in archaeology in 1999. Since then she has been a postdoctoral research fellow working with the Sagalassos team. Her main area of research is changing land use and settlement patterns in the city's territory. She directs the annual surveys in this region and closely cooperates with specialists in remote sensing, geomorphology and palynology to reconstruct landscape evolution throughout the centuries.

Prof. Dr. Gert Verstraeten studied Geography at the K.U.Leuven and made his Msc-thesis on the geomorphology of the broader area around the site of Sagalassos, mainly focusing on the occurence of large landslides. He obtained his doctoral degree in 2000 on contemporary geomorphic processes in the Belgian Loess Belt. Since 2004 he is lecturer at the K.U.Leuven, where he teaches Physical Geography, Topography and Cartography, Late Quaternary Environmental Change, Scientific Methods in Archaeology, and Tectonics and Geomorphology. His research interests are the quantification of historic sediment dynamics and the modelling of past environmental changes. Since 2006 he participates in the Sagalasoss Project and so far, most of his research in Sagalassos focuses on the long-term sediment dynamics of the Bügdüz catchment in the western part of the territory of Sagalassos.

Tom Verweijen is the operational manager of the Sagalassos team. He is responsible for the day-to-day management of the team, the financial management and HR management. He also takes care of the required reporting to the funding institutions. Furthermore he continues to improve the relationship with the Friends of Sagalassos and private sponsors.

Kim Vyncke is a Ph.D. student preparing a dissertation on the Classical-Hellenistic settlement at Tepe Düzen. During her archaeology studies at the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, she has participated in the archaeological surveys at Sagalassos and its territory (2004-2006), and in the small-scale excavations at Tepe Düzen (2006-2007). In 2008 she conducted the first large-scale excavations at Tepe Düzen.

Prof. Dr. Marc Waelkens has been involved in surveys and excavations in Greece, Syria, and Turkey since 1969. He specializes in Anatolian archaeology of the Graeco-Roman period and in ancient quarrying and stone technology. Waelkens is L. Baert-Hofman Professor of Eastern Mediterranean Archaeology at the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven (Belgium) and acting director of Sagalassos Archaeological Research Project. He is a member of various academies (Belgium, Austria), and foreign schools (British School at Athens, German Archaeological Institute). In 1986 he was awarded the Samuel H. Kress lectureship of the Archaeological Institute of America, and next year he is invited by the Australian Institute of Archaeology for two months of lecturing. In 2001 he received the prestiguous John E. Solvay Prize for the Humanities in Belgium, and in 2002 he was granted the Medaillon for Outstanding Service, the most prestiguous Turkish award for foreigners.

Rinse Willet is currently a Ph. D. student preparing a dissertation on "The socio-cultural context of the concept and use of tableware in the Roman East (2nd c. BC - 7th c. AD)". He received his MA at Leiden University in 2007 with his thesis "Feeding Roman Corinth: an exploration in urbanism, economy and population sustainability". As a former staff member of the Boeotia Survey (Greece) he coordinated the field-campaigns and joined the ceramological study campaigns as well, from which his interest in Roman pottery derives. Formerly active in Dutch commercial archaeology, he studied Roman ceramics in the Netherlands as well. He joined the ICRATES-project in early 2009 and studies the table-wares of the Sagalassos project and the Boeotia Survey(Greece) for his dissertation. His main fields of interest are the ancient economy, Roman society, Roman ceramics and ancient demography.

See bios of former Sagalassos staff >>