Halet Cambel

Halet Çambel was a Turkish archaeologist and Olympic fencer who was the first Muslim woman to compete in the Olympic Games. She was born in Berlin, Germany on 27 August 1916, to a prominent Turkish family with close ties to Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, the founder of the Turkish Republic. She completed her secondary education at Arnavutköy American High School for Girls in Istanbul, where she was inspired by her history of art teacher and took up fencing. She continued her studies in archaeology at Sorbonne University in Paris, France, and received her doctorate from Istanbul University in 1940. She became a scientific assistant and later a professor at Istanbul University, where she founded the Institute of Prehistory in 1960. She was also a visiting scholar at the University of Saarbrücken in Germany for two years. In 1936, Çambel represented Turkey in the women's individual foil event at the Berlin Olympics, where she refused to meet Adolf Hitler on political grounds. She was the first Muslim woman to compete in the Olympics and a pioneer of women's sports in Turkey. She married Nail Çakırhan, a communist poet and journalist who later became a celebrated architect, in 1940. They had a long and happy marriage until his death in 2008. Çambel's professional career was devoted to the study of the ancient Anatolian civilizations, especially the Hittites. She collaborated with the German archaeologist Helmuth Theodor Bossert in excavating Karatepe, the walled city of the late Hittite king Azatiwada, located at the Taurus Mountains in southern Turkey. She played a key role in the decipherment of the Hittite hieroglyphics with the help of the Phoenician alphabet after the discovery of the Karatepe Bilingual inscription. She also advocated for the preservation of Turkey's cultural heritage and resisted the government's attempt to move the artifacts from Karatepe to a museum. She established the Karatepe-Aslantaş National Park, Turkey's first open-air museum, in 1957. She also conducted excavations at other sites such as Domuztepe, Yumuktepe, and Kinet Höyük. Çambel received many awards and honors for her contributions to archaeology and culture, such as the Prince Claus Award in 2004, the Sedat Simavi Foundation Award in 2005, and the Presidential Culture and Arts Grand Award in 2011. She died at the age of 97 in Istanbul on 12 January 2014. She was buried beside her husband's grave in Akyaka, Muğla, Turkey.