If I could describe Turkey in one word, it would be recycled. And I don’t assign some of the common connotations associated with this word like hand-me-down or worn. Recycled, in the way I am using it, instead holds connotations of rejuvenated, reinvented, well lived, entrenched in the past. Every day buses take us from Gazipasa to the dig site. Along the way you can look out the window and simply feel that this place is ancient. Crossing the landscape are terrace walls which have been used, reused, and repaired since the bronze age, approximately 4000 years ago. Along side a cliff sits a marble quarry that cuts stone from the same place as the Antiochians did to make their imperial temple. Take a step of the dig site and you will find yourself looking at a Roman grave re-purposed as a vine trellis by a local farmer. And, if you are lucky enough, you can shake hands with said farmer whose sun soaked skin, deep wrinkles, and cotton white hair will remind you of a people who migrated into the area 600 years ago. The school house within which we operate even has a roof constructed in the same manner as the buildings we are excavating on the acropolis. By experiencing modern Turkey we are experiencing the ancient. A thread of culture weaves its way through time to the present and in our excavations we are following it back to its most primordial past.
<<<<Me in the trenches 😀
You must be logged in to post a comment.