i'm not an archaeologist, not yet a geologist [part IV--week 3]

The start to week 3 wasn’t exactly splendid—we all woke up that Saturday morning convinced we’d been punched in the face. Robert didn’t even wake up. It wasn’t until we were just about to leave for the site that we realized no one had seen him. Poor thing came running out of his room completely disheveled and anything but happy to be alive.

To add another blow to the already lacking energy level, we realized on the drive up to site that we had forgotten to fill up the water bottles, so supplies were limited for the day. Bah humbug.

My trench was nearing completion—three days later than expected—and the day was relatively uneventful. It mainly consisted of me continuously telling the guys to “just dig deeper.” It was nice to have an easy day, no more pottery and bone, lots of quiet.

Tranquility, however, was not meant to be part of the experience, and the relaxing atmosphere was smashed upon returning to the dig house later that afternoon. It seemed that everyone was going to be coming in for the weekend—Francoise, Pamela, Ben, Kagan, Murat, Nuri and Pinar. The place was pretty stuffed and to get away from it I decided to take a walk.

Unfortunately, upon my return, I also found out that Ismail Bey had gone to talk with Scott and Geoff. He didn’t like the fact that I was a geologist—i.e. not trained as an archaeologist—which I can understand. In reality, however, I hadn’t done anything wrong.

Nonetheless, Scott and Geoff decided to take me off the trenches. I would have another part of a day, but Robert would come over to babysit me, to keep the rep happy. Then, they said, they had a whole assortment of other projects lined up for me to do. Stuff I’d be way more interested in because it was geology. Oh goody.

Now, this bothered me a bit because a) I didn’t need them to find projects for me to do—I had my own!, and b) I was being punished for something that I had never signed up to do—they were giving me these other projects on the grounds that they were supposed to be “more interesting” for me [because they were geology], but it was more to appease the representative. Fine, I can understand that—I’m not a key player in the dig and they’d rather keep the Turkish government happy than have me wreck it for them. Even so, I felt pretty crappy. It wasn’t fair for me to be treated like I was inept and have someone come to watch over me, just to appease the rep.

Oh well. Just bite the bullet and let it go.

The geology project, it turned out, was to work with Nuri and Pinar—geologists from ODTU—on getting cores for geomagnetic dating. I’ll be honest here: that did not interest me in the slightest. It's not really my type of geology and the actual core collecting is not particularly engaging. Oh well.

And, oh the irony! For that project, do you know what I had to do? I sat with Natalie and watched two workers re-open an old trench, and then I watched while Nuri and Pinar take their cores from the area we opened. So, even in doing the geology project, I was still participating more in the archaeology! Heh. Granted, taking cores like these is pretty straightforward…there’s not much geology to do there anyhow.

Yes, it was boring. And relatively pointless. And the rep came over to watch and was appeased.

By the time they finished with the cores, it was only early-afternoon. So, I asked Scott if I could go over to Sepi’s trench. At least in that case I would be able to under a trained archaeologist and the rep couldn’t complain or yell at me. Hooha.

Sepi’s trench was a pretty incredible place. It extended 23 meters in length and 2 meters in depth. There was a huge section with this incredible banded black and white rock, a couple of walls, a little section turning out great bone like a pig’s jaw, and then areas of nothingness. Most of the guys had been sent over to work in the trench, too, so I had a good time talking and laughing with them. It was definitely one of the more interesting and enjoyable trenches to spend time in.

And that’s where I spent the rest of the week working. It wasn’t particularly eventful since the trench had been open 1.5 weeks and it was beginning to wind down. Luckily, we always had ridiculous animals to keep our spirits up—one morning we had a sheep and goat attack. The goats were quite fond of our dirt pile and did their natural goat-climbing-a-psuedomountain bit. From that point they became quite keen on jumping into the two meter deep hole that lay before them and it took all our efforts to get them to shoo. We had already come one morning to find a dead mouse in another trench; we really didn’t need a goat as well. Oh, those silly silly goats!

Back down at the house, things continued to be a bit hectic. People were constantly flowing in and out, though the bulk left on Monday. Then Tuna came back—visa and all—along with another ODTU student, Ahmet, who was working with Geoff in the palace area.

While Francoise and Pamela, Nuri and Pinar all left on Monday, Ben, Kagan, and Murat stuck around. Murat was there to do some photography—he’s an archaeological photographer—and mostly spent his days incredibly bored, as Noel and Tiffin rushed to get things prepared for photographing.

Ben, a hilarious Dutch man working in archaeologic drawing and teaching at Bilkent University, kept me and Tiffin laughing. He mostly spent his time down at the depo, doing professional drawings of some of the more important pieces.

His 11-year-old son, Kagan, had also come along. Kagan is quite interesting. His father is Dutch and his mother is Turkish. He is definitely getting a bit of the Turkish brainwashing in him—everything in the world comes from Turkey, you know—and has a tendency to drive people a tad nutso.

One particularly funny interaction with him went as such:

scene: I am sitting on the balcony after a long day, sipping my water with lemon and mint. I sit staring into space for about an hour. During that time, Kagan walks by a couple of times. At one point he says to me:

K: “Don’t you get bored, just sitting there?”
A: “It’s been a long hard day, I’m taking a rest. It’s not boring to me.”
K: “Oh, I see. I mean, if it were me, I wouldn’t get bored. I have an imagination, you see. I can make things up in my head and keep myself from being bored. But, I don’t know how old you are, so I don’t know if you can do that.”

Heh. This explanation was particularly ironic because it was entirely untrue—that kid couldn’t keep himself from being bored if you gave him an amusement park!

Another time, he came by with a new paper airplane he’d made:

K: “Have you ever seen a paper airplane like this one?!”
A: “Yes.”
K: “Oh.”

My, how wonderful it is to shoot little kids’ dreams, hopes, and bragging rights down, down to the ground!

Otherwise, the week was uneventful, and I took lots of walks and Tiffin and I religiously watched the younger workmen playing in evening soccer games.

One evening, though, turned into a major gossip fest between Tiffin, Tuna, and me. That is where we learned the unexpected and somewhat dismaying news that Murat was married with child on the way. We also learned that Lokman, who said he was 22, was actually 19. We also learned the ages of all the guys, which tended to shock us—men in Turkey age quickly, probably from all the hard work out in the sun, and they are always much younger than I expect them to be. We had a pretty good time, challenging each other over who had the better and bigger gossip. It was particularly hilarious when I told Tuna something and he said “I’ve been here four years and I didn’t know that! How do you know that?!”

In that moment, I was a champion. A champion!

The week ended, of course, with another Friday trip…another eventful Friday trip:

Sepi and Robert were quite keen on seeing some archaeological ruins. Tiffin, Tuna, and I were quite keen on having a picnic. To make everyone happy, we decided to do both.

So, it was off to Akdag...Osman Bey, driving driving driving. Uneventful. Until we get to Akdag and try to travel through it.

Yes, we get stopped by a cop. Apparently, Osman Bey didn’t have the proper documents to be driving us around in the way he was. He started getting upset. Tuna got involved. Osman Bey and Tuna went into the police office. They invited the rest of us for tea. Of course. After much wordplay and many telephone calls we were finally let through.

In Akdag we visited an old Armenian church. It was interesting…? Actually, it was kind of unfortunate how run-down and graffiti-covered it had become.

Oh well, the donkeys that were hanging out in the garden were funny. And the walls around the church were made of perfect perfect perfect textbook limestone. That calcite. That calcite! I get teary just thinking about it.

After that we went to an old old old prison in the middle of town. It was locked but after some finagling we managed to get someone to come open the door and let us in. Tuna pointed out the great old carvings on the wall, like this horse and all the tick marks the prisoners made [counting off the days].

Next, it was off to another set of ruins. The road was a bit twisty and we didn’t have a good idea as to where we were really going. When we finally got there, the result was unspectacular and the hike up to the site was a challenge. Nonetheless, the view was nice and the cool breeze was a relief. The baby turkeys in the cemetery at the base of the hill were also a source of much amusement. They are pretty ugly…in a cute way.

After sitting around there awhile, waiting for Osman Bey to finish praying at the nearby cami, we headed back the way we came and looked for a decent picnic spot. There were a few bladder emergencies and it seemed like finding a place to just settle down took forever. It was hard to find a secluded place, though—all the cesmes were stuffed with people cleaning carpets and newly shaved sheep’s wool.

Eventually, after much pleading by the need-to-pee-ers, we stopped. It was a nice, relaxing picnic…something we had planned to do on previous Friday trips but never successfully did. Tuna showed us The Stick Game, one of his favorite pastimes [and it showed, he was a pro], and it was played for awhile. Then, we packed up and went home.

It was an early day, but that was ok. A big group was coming in from the UK for the night and we were going to have a barbeque. And what a barbeque it was. Mmm. Despite the concerns over his ability to do it, Mehmes made one hell of a feast. The chicken was out of this world. Too bad the leader of the UK group was a vegetarian…heh. Lets just say, we had a lot of leftovers.