After his high school education, he entered the Faculty of Letters at Istanbul University in 1935 studying Assyriology, Hittitology, Archaeology and Ancient history.
The discovery of Karatepe Bilingual decisively led to the decryption of Hieroglyphic Luwian with the help of Phoenician alphabet.
From 1957 until 1961, Alkım excavated at the Yesemek Quarry and Sculpture Workshop in Gaziantep Province, which was discovered by Felix von Luschan (1854–1924).
[1] His excavation between 1958 and 1972 at Tilmen Höyük unearthed four overlaid settlements dating back from the Late Chalcolithic period to the Islamic epoch, including a 19th-century BC old city and a palace building of the Yamhad Kingdom.
[1][3][4] Alkım localized more than fifty settlements at his surface surveys he carried out in the Black Sea Region in the years from 1971 to 1973.