…Planning the Survey Team’s Participation…

  • Project dates
  • Language
  • Work timetable
  • Finance and personal funding applications
  • International participants: travel and visas
  • Domestic participants: travel, Kurban bayramı

 Project dates

The intensive survey will take place 31st August to 22nd September 2015 inclusive. This means most of the team should aim to arrive in Didim on Saturday 29th August and leave not sooner than the evening of Tuesday 22nd September. We may ask a small number of people to stay a little longer (up to 30th September), if available, for processing finds. We will contact you individually if this is the case, or if you should come earlier for the extensive part of the survey.

Language

Please note the primary communication language of the project (and its documentation) will be English, so it is important that participants feel confident they understand information circulated, and if not, you must ask. Each fieldwalking team will have a minimum of one Turkish speaker. (Of course we encourage people to use the opportunity to improve their Turkish, English and/or German informally between team members!).

Work timetable

We will be fieldwalking Monday to Friday, with a half-day on Saturday for short fieldwalking, find-processing and writing-up. Saturday afternoon/evening we hope to organize optional field-trips to local sites of interest. Sunday is our day-off and team members are free to go the beach or sleep off Saturday night :-).

Finance and personal funding applications

Many colleges and universities have small research grants for the purpose of fieldwork involvement or foreign travel, whose deadlines may be quite soon. We are happy to provide information/letters of support as part of any such application. As far as budgeting reference goes, we are currently calculating lodging and maintenance at around €25 per day per person. Such contributions will of course be acknowledged appropriately in relevant project output.

Please note we are unable to pay full salaries for this project, but we will ensure team members are not out-of-pocket as a result of their participation. Hence where participants do not have access to alternative funds, travel, accommodation and maintenance will be underwritten (i.e. the project will pay if you cannot find a source yourself), leaving a small yet-to-be-decided weekly amount for day-off spending money.

International participants: travel and visas

Flights/Travel: For international participants, the nearest airport is Milas-Bodrum from where there are frequent private shuttles (c. 90mins) to Didim (e.g. Love Tours or Gordion Travel). Airlines operating out of Bodrum include: easyJet, Turkish airlines, AtlasJet, Pegasus, ThomasCook and British Airways. You can use websites like skyscanner.com and travelsupermarket.com to find a good fare. Izmir is another option, though transfer to Didim is more complicated to arrange. For international travellers we have currently budgeted a maximum of €300 per person for travel to Didim. If you can find cheaper flights (or alternative sources of funding), so much the better!

Obviously you are free to arrive in the country earlier and leave later on your own travels, but we can’t automatically provide accommodation in Didim outside one or two days before and after the fieldwork dates (e.g. to find cheaper flights). (There is, however, lots of quite reasonable holiday accommodation in the area which you can find easily online or in person, as well as options for car-hire etc. locally).

Visas: We recommend you aim for a visa application appointment about 2-3 weeks before your planned departure date, as it usually takes about a week to process and you have to leave your passport with the consulate during this time. Please check your local Turkish consulate’s website, but you will need to bring with you, at a minimum, the following items:-

  • a visa application form (downloadable from consulate website)
  • passport photographs (minimum 6)
  • a copy of the permission document (a copy of which we will send as soon as we receive it)
  • your passport (with sufficient validity)

It will not be possible to apply for the visa before around 20th June because the consulates will not have received the relevant permit from the Turkish Ministry of Culture before then.

We are happy to answer any questions about the visa process we can, or direct you to the appropriate person.

Travel and health insurance: whilst you will be insured during the work itself by the DAI, this may not cover travel and any additional non-work-related medical expenses. Turkey is outside of the EU and not subject to E111/EHIC mutual agreements. Hence we suggest you check any annual travel insurance you already have (many travel policies cover archaeological work), and if you are not covered, you may need to purchase a policy

Domestic participants: travel, Kurban bayramı

Kurban bayram arifesi is due to fall on Wednesday 23rd September. We realize travel can be busy at this time of year, so it will be worth booking your return travel in advance, perhaps even on arrival in Didim. If you planning to attend Kurban events, we ask that you do not leave Didim before around 4pm on Tuesday 22nd September, however.

It is still too early to book internal travel within Turkey, but please bear in mind that the available amount for travel to and from Didim will be around 180TL/€60 per person.