So here I am in Turkey, in Antioch ad Cragum, for a second time. It’s a funny thing because I wasn’t expecting to be back, I’m not going to be an archeologist and I doubt I’ll end up an academic historian for all that I’m a history major, but here I am. Why’s that I wonder? Maybe it’s the opportunity. Realistically speaking, when else in my life am I going to be able to devote two summers of my life to run around rural Turkey uncovering and trying to understand the peoples that once lived here. Maybe it’s the chance to travel again, to expose myself to a culture that is very different from my own and study them. I am, after all, not much more than a mildly obsessive people-watcher. Maybe I’m just a masochist, I mean why else would I willing subject myself to spend seven hours a day digging in ninety-five degree weather. Maybe I’ll have figure it out by the time I leave.
But speaking seriously, it’s good to be back. We have only been working for two days so it is currently just a process of trying to figure out how the series of new features we have discovered (a wall in AC3B, a possible bench in 4A, etc.) fit into the rest of the acropolis but progress is continuing to be made and on Monday we will be back at it. The next four weeks will be an intriguing process of discovery and evaluation and if I’m very, very lucky I might just learn something. That is the goal in any case.
In other words, the warm up has been fun but now it’s time for the real work to begin.
Maia