Kenan Erim


Kenan Tevfik Erim was a Turkish archaeologist who excavated from 1961 until his death at the site of Aphrodisias in Turkey.

Life

Erim's father, Tevfik Erim, was a diplomat who was a member of the Political Section of the Secretariat of the League of Nations in the 1930s and of the Turkish delegation to the United Nations in the 1950s. Kenan Erim was raised and educated in Geneva, Switzerland, and undertook his university studies in the United States. He took his first degree in Classical archaeology at New [York University] in 1953, and his Ph.D. at Princeton University in 1958.
In 1957, he lectured at Indiana University, and from 1958 onwards he was employed by NYU, where he became full professor in 1971. The NYU Institute of Fine Arts, alongside Oxford University, continues to supervise the excavations at Aphrodisias to this day. There is a grave memorial to Professor Erim near the reconstructed Tetraplyon.

Honours