the ancient site of Kerkenes and the rebirth of a geology dream. [part II]

And continuing...

Day 2--Part II: Saturday April 14th, 2007

Five main rocks were being used in building and ornaments at Kerkenes:
1. granite [gray]
2. granite [red]
3. quartz-tourmaline breccia [black and white]
4. sandstone
5. fossiliferous limestone

Now, the questions are:
1. where the heck did they get the rocks?
2. did they quarry them?
(a) if yes, where are the quarries?
(b) if no, see question 1.
3. how did they get them to the site?

The two granites are pretty easy. They were primarily used for building foundations and walls. Geoff, and I would agree, is pretty sure that these were not taken from any significant distance--not only are they seriously heavy rocks, but they comprise the entire Kerkenes mountaintop. There's no reason to think they would do anything but collect from the area and cut as necessary.

That leaves us with the other rocks. These were generally used in carving, ornamentation, and statuary. However, at the palace complex, it is clear that special care was taken when considering the building. Rocks in this building were layered with regards to color--red granite base to yellow sandstone to bright white fossiliferous limestone. The intent to do this is obvious, both from the physical elements seen in the excavation and ancient writings that discuss the building. Nonetheless, where the significant quantities of these stones came from is still unknown.

Geoff does not believe they were collected from any place much outside a 5 km radius around the site. Furthermore, specific trade and transport roads were most likely used because moving rocks along unestablished roads would be very difficult. We're talking about a really rough climate and terrain here--in all likelihood, they dealt with thick forests and winter conditions for nearly 9 months a year.

So, the goal of the afternoon was to begin investigating these questions a little bit. Nothing formal, just a drive around Kerkenes. Geoff could show me the places where he knew certain rocks could be found and we could take an informal look around.

It was great. We started by checking out this odd black rock up on a hillside. It's this really incredible rock--very hard, black, often in sharp contact with a quartzite. [I had no idea what it was when we were out there, but now I know it's a quartz-tourmaline breccia] It was used very little at Kerkenes, though I can't understand why--it's a striking, handsome stone. However, I suppose, it is a metamorphic rock...which means it's hard as hell and nearly impossible to carve. But, they definitely could have gotten their supply of it from this little hilltop area. Probably didn't need to quarry it.

We kept going a bit and found a modern road quarry, nothing special. But then...Geoff just stopped the Land Rover near a hill and plowed field.

What did I see? Umm...a hill and mushed dirt.
What did he see? A settlement.

Uh huh...yeah. You've got to be kidding me, i thought.

It was all triggered by a change in soil color. The hill is a hoyuk [heuhyeuk; mound]. It's basically a small hill that formed over time as people build-destroy-rebuild mudbrick houses. Hoyuks are all over the Anatolian Plain and this one is a small mound, probably had a few hundred homes. It's associated with a small wadi--a stream--as is typical of most hoyuks. Hey, everybody needs some water some time.

Geoff didn't tell me what it was immediately, just said he saw a change in the soil color. As we walked closer to the mound he started bending down and picking stuff up...by stuff I mean pottery. The change in the soil color was because pottery was being incorporated into the plowing. And that tipped him off! Ha! Pretty cool, huh? But, you know, ignorance is bliss. Now, every time I see color grade in plowed soil next to a hill I'm going to think some ancient civilization lived there. Good thing Chicago has no hills.

It was exciting, a great archeology lesson. Funny, though. Geoff spots pottery right away while I spot rocks and crystals right away, and it's hard for us to find the other person's objects. The eye, it's trained.

But, moving on.

After that we just drove around for awhile--off road, on road, through villages, stopping to look at rocks along the road, inspecting mudbrick houses for pottery fragments, coming upon really strange incredibly red rocks [that you find near the Euphrates, not near Kerkenes], asking villagers where the rocks came from and getting answers like "this is a wall."--it was great.

At one point we came upon the coal quarry which we are going to try to get access to at some point. It's the first place we think we spied the sandstone, but it's much too far from Kerkenes to have been the quarry for them.

Driving around was probably the best thing for us to spend the afternoon doing. The day was perfectly clear [we could Mt. Erciyas, 100 km away, poking out above the clouds!!] and I developed a much better understanding of the area and the radius that I'll be dealing with. I also collected a bunch of stuff that I'm super duper uper excited to start looking at. Overall, I really needed to see this; I think it's going to be really helpful in terms of pre-fieldwork work.

We got back to the Kerkenes village with about an hour before the weather would start getting really cold. So, Geoff and I took a walk around the village. He brought me out to the Organik Bahce [bahchey, garden] that is apparently doing really well. It's part of Francoise's project. The question now is: how do you make it in to something bigger? Sure, some other people have started organic farming in Kerkenes based on the success of this garden. But, how do you go from 5 to 50 to 500 to 5000 to 50,000 farms? Where do you get the funding? I asked Geoff about using the microbank loan system that is being used some in India, but he made a pretty compelling argument for how it wouldn't work in Turkey...at least not yet.

On the way out to the garden we came upon this wheel. It's a stone crusher! You hook a donkey up to the metal bar, put your material in the well, the donkey walks in circles and the wheel crushes. This one is currently not used, but they are still used in the area. Remember, cars had never even been seen here until the 1930s. Shows how much a donkey can really handle, too. [you can see Geoff in the back]

The villagers told the Kerkenes project that they could take it, but it's falling apart and may be quite difficult to move. They are trying to set up a small Kerkenes museum and this village artifact would be a great addition. I'm also going to try to put together a small local geology display for them while I'm here.

After the garden, Geoff took me over to another hoyuk. This one also became the village's first cemetery. The cemetery grew too large, however, and now it's split between two other locations. But, again, there was pottery everywhere on the mound.





Throughout the landscape of the area there are striking arrays of poplar trees. According to Geoff, the story goes:

"When a baby girl is born, her father plants poplars. The poplars are then used to build the roof of her first home when she gets married."




I quite like that. The reality of it now is unclear. But, the trees are everywhere and always arranged in such a picturesque fashion in the middle of fields.





















There are also a million gazillion birds. Hoopoes and magpies are my favorites. The hoopoes are a bright yellow with black and white wings, a long beak, and a spiffy crest. The magpies are black with this wonderfully long tail of black and white feathers...and they hop around sometimes, which is hilarious. The storks are quite cool too; on the top of many of the village mosques you can see gigantic nests, which the storks return to every year.














The sun started going down and it was getting on towards dinner, so we headed back. We had quite the view and Kerkenes makes for a beautiful silhouette background as the sun goes down.

We were planning to go to the wedding in the evening, but we wanted to be sure to go after the guests had eaten...otherwise, they'd shove food down our throats. So, we waited until 8 to eat. In the meantime, for the two hours prior, I basically hugged the furnace. Then, unfortunately, during dinner we heard gunshots. It's a big problem here--a number of deaths occurred recently from bullets shot in the air falling back on people's heads. So, we decided to wait until Sunday to go. It was an early night, as a result...and I was thankful for that, since all the wedding dancing occurred outside aaaand I was pretty zonked.

Day 3: Sunday April 15th, 2007

Woke up to...SNOW. ugh. so so so cold. But, it was good for the village. There's going to be a serious water shortage this summer as the entire country has received virtually no rain/snow this winter/spring.


Our original plan was to leave by 4 o'clock, but we decided to leave earlier in case the road conditions were bad. Francoise had some things to do, so Geoff and I went to run errands in Sorgun, which included trying to get money out of the bank machine. Given that it was Sunday in the middle of nowhere, all the banks were closed and there was no cash in the ATM machines. heh. That was pretty unsuccessful.

Then we drove out a bit farther, and saw the Sugar Factory, some quarries, and an entire town that is heated by the local natural hot springs. They're building a whole bunch of new hot spring heated cookie cutter houses and a hot springs resort, though we're not sure how deep the reservoir is. Nonetheless, pretty cool.

Then we went out to "the lake." We checked out some rocks along the way and went through a little village called Peyniryemez Koyu [Cheese is Not Eaten Village]--total B.S., they definitely eat cheese there. But, there's gotta be a story behind the name. Always is, here. That's why I love Turkish place names. They are generally pretty self explanatory, otherwise there's a good story.

Eventually we got to the lake. It's got tons of birds around it, big storks and herons. It reminded me of Kruger watering holes a fair bit.

And there, right next to it: Cadirhoyuk [chaderheuhyeuk]

Cadirhoyuk [the thing on the left] is a pretty famous mound that has had many generations of inhabitants. Honestly, it seems to me that every civilization that ever inhabited the Anatolian Plain since the Calcholithic period probably, at one time or another, had a group living on Cadirhoyuk. A mild exaggeration...but, it really does have a ridiculously rich history of habitation. Mounds like this one are pretty cool because they basically hold a stratigraphic record of civilization. One group builds upon the last and so on. So, the mound has layers corresponding with different groups of inhabitants. Stratigraphy of civilization...hmm, I like that.

Cadirhoyuk is huge and you can see excavation work from quite a distance [note, my picture stinks]. I can also see why it was such a popular location--safety, access to water, access to transport routes...nice view, too. Pretty much a perfect location. Ron Gorny, at the University of Chicago [he's actually a student advisor in Harper], is the project director. He was part of my Fulbright Committee, too. I'm hoping to go see the site close-up sometime this summer, hopefully he'll be there. Geoff doesn't think Cadir will have a long excavation season this year, for some reason or another. Dunno. We'll see.

After a relaxing 15 minutes at the lake and Cadir it was time to get back. We knew it would probably take a while to get Francoise into the Land Rover, so we thought it best to start goading her early...an hour-and-a-half early. Did it work? No. We still left late. But, we did get her out by 2:30 which, by Geoff and Pam's standards, is pretty good.


It was snowing pretty hard in places. Sometimes, though, there were periods of great light...which I missed, of course, and got some mostly rotten pictures. But, here's some of the landscape. As per usual, I haven't done it justice. But, making the photos bigger helps, especially the fourth one. I spent most of my time drooling on the window. Yes, emphasis is on the rocks, I know. I'm working on it, ok!? Right...we all know that's a lie, too.









We made it back in good time. I came home to leftover icli kofte from Aunt Nurten [mmm], a hot shower [which I didn't take until the next morning], and a warm apartment [so warm I couldn't sleep, actually]. Ah, you win some you lose some.

I admit, even though Ankara is not nearly as scenic and I've gone back to having sleepless nights, it's good to be back. At the same time, I'm stoked to get back to Kerkenes. Does that make sense? No. Did I ever claim to make sense? No. Good.

But yes, this weekend was great. And I'm definitely looking forward to the summer, getting to hop around on those rocks and ruins. yippee skippee.