Dr. Dirican holds an MA from the Archaeometry Department of Middle East Technical University, where he focused on Hellenistic period amphora production workshops and the provenance of ceramics, and a PhD from the same department, with research focused on Halafian ceramics and chlorite stone vessels. Through these research projects he gained knowledge and experience about the production processes and provenance of ceramic and stone finds (obsidian, marble, basalt, chloritoid, etc.). He then participated in many archaeological excavation projects for nearly ten years and most recently studied at the Austrian Archeological Institute for two years with a TÜBİTAK post-doctoral research fellowship. There he carried out a project on “Determining the raw material properties of some Pamphylian sarcophagi and investigating the possible sources of their raw materials in the historical Pamphylia.”
His current research concerns obsidian provenance. While at ANAMED, he will use geochemical data to try to pinpoint a prehistoric obsidian source—referred to as the 3D source in the literature—the location of which has remained unknown to this day.