Lâtife Summerer

Lâtife Summerer wrote in 2023 that the Republic of Cyprus's Department of Antiquities had blacklisted her, an allegation she made in a chapter of a volume she co-edited⁷. Her field is the archaeology and art history of Cyprus.

By her own account she met Vassos Karageorghis at a conference in Athens in 2006. She says he told her of his commitment to prevent archaeological activity in the north and advised her not to engage with Cyprus, and that this led her to produce an edited book to raise the standing of archaeology and art history in the northern part of the island⁷. The project began in 2012 with Bülent Kızılduman, who later could not co-edit for lack of time¹. The Northern Face of Cyprus: New Studies in Cypriot Archaeology and Art History appeared in Istanbul in 2016, edited by Summerer and Hazar Kaba with sponsorship from the Presidency of the TRNC and the Foundation Mediterranean Antico-Onlus. Her Introduction presents it as a response to forty years of exclusion of northern Cyprus. She contributed two co-authored chapters, one on an Artemis Ephesia statuette from Salamis with Emine H. Sivri and one on lamps from a Hellenistic or Roman tomb at Kormakiti with Mehmet Şöföroğlu¹.

Summerer states that after the book appeared a Greek colleague told her she was blacklisted, that confidential letters were circulated against the book, and that a planned online review was withdrawn. She does not name the senders; no reply from the Department is recorded⁷. She also states that a letter from the Department discouraged participation in a September 2019 conference in Kyrenia on cultural heritage in divided Cyprus^7,8. The proceedings, edited by Summerer, Marko Kiessel and Kaba, were published by ARUCAD Press in 2023 with her chapter "In Fear of Blacklisting"⁸.