Turkish archaeologist commits suicide after being pressured to assume responsibility for missing artifacts

Nuray Pehlivan/ DUVAR

Archaeologist Merve Kaçmış, who was employed at Gaziantep's Zeugma Mosaic Museum, committed suicide by jumping off the 8th-floor of her family's home in the Bağlar district of Diyarbakır earlier this week. In a suicide note that the 33-year-old Kaçmış left behind, she claimed that she faced bullying at work and was being pressured to take responsibility for 150-200 missing artifacts. 

“We looked at the note that Merve left before the suicide in her case file. The writing was extremely blurry, however the fact that it was in reference to her work place is obvious from some clear statements. The first sentence says 'I didn't do it, I'm innocent. There are cameras everywhere and when you take a look you will see.' and continues with four to five sentences about what happened at her workplace. The remaining sentences are unreadable,” lawyer Aslı Pasinli told GazeteDuvar.

“We will request for the letter to be deciphered, and we will also request that the investigation be expanded to determine whether or not a long period of bullying at work drove her to suicide,” Pasinli added.

Kaçmış' sister Pınar said that Merve was under considerable stress at work, becoming obsessed with a months-long survey of artifacts that she was working on. 

“My sister was first appointed to the museum two and a half years ago. There was a survey [of artifacts] that went on for six to seven months. It took quite a long time to find the artifacts. It somehow just dragged on and on. When it turned out that 150-200 were missing, my sister did not want to take responsibility for them. She would continually explain that she didn't want to take responsibility for missing artifacts, but she was repeatedly insisted by her boss that she had to take responsibility in this manner” Pınar said. 

“She said that her boss said 'finish this right away and take responsibility [for the missing artifacts], if you don't finish an inspector is going to come' and that he was perpetually pressuring her. At every turn my sister wanted to inform the general director of this situation. I told her many times to explain the situation to the inspectors,” Pınar Kaçmış added.

The Ministry of Culture and Tourism announced on Thursday that an investigation into the matter had begun immediately and that some museum personnel had been removed from duty.