From the founder of nautical archaeology to a prolific actor and athletic legend with multiple Mr. World and Mr. Universe wins to an Emmy winner for a good cause and ANews editor-at-large, let us pay homage to the precious people we lost this year who loved and lived in Turkey.
Passing at the age of 88 in March of this year, George Bass left behind a long legacy in the field of nautical archaeology and is regularly referred to as the “Father of Underwater Archaeology.” For the first time ever, George Bass excavated ancient shipwrecks in seabeds, many of which were in Turkey. The first underwater archaeological excavation to take place in the world just happened to be led by Bass in 1960 and was of a shipwreck from the Bronze Age at Cape Gelidonya, located in the Mediterranean Sea off the coast of Antalya. His pioneering efforts led to the establishment of underwater archaeology as an academic discipline. In later years, Bass would go on to excavate a number of prominent shipwrecks in Turkey including the Uluburun, the Yassı Ada and the Serçe Liman. Many of the remains from these shipwrecks are on display at the Bodrum Underwater Archeology Museum housed in the Bodrum Castle and is the largest and leading institution of its kind worldwide. For Bass, and as he pens in his memoir, the excavation of trade-route shipwrecks could provide “the ultimate histories of virtually everything ever made by humans.” Much of human history he believed still lay on the bottom of the sea. According to Bass, thousands of shipwrecks still await excavation.
A report penned by Bass paved the way for the establishment of the international treaty to prevent the illegal trade of cultural items, the UNESCO 1970 Convention on the Means of Prohibiting and Preventing the Illicit Import, Export and Transfer of Ownership of Cultural Property. Bass was also an academic with a master's degree in Near Eastern archaeology and a Ph.D. in classical archaeology and taught as professor emeritus at Texas A&M University. He has also written a shipload of books on his five decades of diving to study shipwrecks, including “Beneath the Seven Seas,” “Archaeology Beneath the Sea” and “Shipwrecks in the Bodrum Museum of Underwater Archaeology.” Bass was also the recipient of multiple awards for his contributions to the field of underwater archaeology, which include the 2002 National Medal of Science, the United States’ highest award for lifetime achievement in scientific research and the National Geographic Centennial Award back in 1988.
In 1973, George Bass founded the Institute of Nautical Archaeology in Texas and later an INA research center in Bodrum. The majority of his fieldwork took place in Turkey and eventually he and his wife built a home in Bodrum. Bass died in Bryan, Texas with his wife by his side. In addition, he is survived by his two sons, Alan and Gordon, and two grandchildren.
Scottish actor Mike Mitchell, who starred in the blockbusters “Gladiator” and “Braveheart,” died from a heart attack at the age of 65 in July in the Fethiye district of Muğla province, in southwestern Turkey. While these films are just a drop in the bucket of a long filmography list, IMDB shows he was involved in at least 10 different films to be released in the years to come. The list includes a leading role in “Aylan Baby,” a film recalling the tragic death of 3-year-old Syrian Aylan Kurdi, found washed ashore in Bodrum. Yet another upcoming release is “Islamophobia,” written and directed by the same director, Omer Sarikaya, who hailing from Batman has an avid interest in the Turkey-Ireland connection, which he will document in “Famine” yet another upcoming release with Mitchell. In 2020, Mitchell was the recipient of the award for “Best Performance of a Foreign Actor in a Turkish Production” at the Trakya Film Festival for “My Handkerchief Smells of Thyme,” in which he plays the role of an Australian Anzac officer in the Battle of Gallipoli.
While Mitchell may be better known for his prolific film career, he was also a legendary athlete with five Master Mr. World titles and two Mr. Universe wins and in 2010, was awarded the World Fitness Federation's (WFF) highest honor, the Living Legend Award. He trained to be a combat frogman at age 16 and became part of Elite Special Forces. He was also a deep-sea diver, competitive sailor and avid horseback rider. Leaving behind his wife and the seven children they have between them, Mitchell and his wife spent a significant amount of their lives over the past two decades in Turkey. Mitchell’s wife Denise had him repatriated back to Aberdeen, Scotland, where he has been laid to rest.
Unfortunately, though this is an obituary, the individual I am about to write about is not the type to want anything morbid written about him – so instead this is a tribute. That’s the type of person Jason Jones was, filled with insight, knowledge, humor, joy and an intense love for his little “lion cub,” who is his son Aslan. I contacted Jones when I saw a viral video of Aslan walking to school in Istanbul, capturing all of the joyous moments and interactions with his Turkish neighbors along the way. It was heartwarming to say the least.
As a fellow American expat, Jones reaffirmed my stance that Turkey is the best place in the world to live, especially if you have children. I interviewed him on multiple occasions to hear his perspectives on life in Istanbul, feeling safe in Turkey and to discuss general pandemic woes. Jason worked as an editor-at-large at our sister network ANews and was an actor represented by Istanbul’s premiere expat casting agency and acted in a number of roles in Turkish productions such as the 2019 film "Turkish Ice Cream" and Türkcell commercials. Before relocating to Turkey, however, Jones was also manager and producer for an Emmy award-winning fundraising program on PBS.
Jones was a skilled photographer and regularly shot captivating images of the surroundings around him. On social media, he was one of those people whose pages you would constantly check for his hilarious posts, cultural commentary and movie reviews. When he considered exiting the social media outlet, I was among many who pleaded for him to stay. But alas, Jones is no longer among us this year, taken from us on January 1, 2021, due to multiple organ failures at just 50 years old. His young half-Turkish son Aslan, the apple of his eye and his very reason for being, is Jones’ only living relative. Like me, his friends, of which he truly had many, will miss this special person deeply but all we can do is celebrate the joy he brought into our lives, which his friends and family did this weekend in commemoration of his passing.
