Our month in Turkey has just flown by and I can’t believe that we only have one and a half dig days left. I feel like that it is not enough time, like there is still so much left to discover and so much left that I want to know. But I guess we have to leave something for future groups to uncover. My month in Turkey doing archaeology has been amazing. I am going home with so many amazing memories and stories and new friends that I can look forward to seeing again when I get back to school. I am so thankful for this amazing experience that we have shared. I am also leaving Turkey after having learned so much about myself as a person and after having picked up skills that will be incredibly useful to me in life post-Turkey.
While being here, I think that I have discovered that I am much more capable than I ever thought that I was. Archaeology is hard. It is exhausting and you end up dirty and sore at the end of the day. Our dig days involve wielding pick axes, lifting large rocks and throwing them off mountains, maneuvering around the large pits we have dug with heavy buckets, and other physically demanding tasks. Before coming here I was incredibly afraid that I wouldn’t be able to handle the physical side of archaeology. But I think that I adapted quickly and feel like I was able to do it and was able to do it successfully. By the end of the month I was doing all of the things that I described above with no problem. And I think that even if I never have to do any of those things again, I learned valuable lessons about myself that I will carry with me. The very fact that I was able to do all of it for a month has taught me that I shouldn’t doubt myself, that I am more capable than I give myself credit for sometimes, and that I should have more confidence in my own abilities.
I also am a natural introvert at heart. And during this month I think I have pushed myself to be more social and extroverted than I usually am. It ended up being pretty easy because I got really lucky and ended up on this trip with a really good group of people. But it was really hard for me at first and I think that it was really good for me to try and be more extroverted. I learned that it as not as scary as it can seem and that I can do it and I should try and do it more often.
Unsurprisingly, I have also learned that I really really like archaeology. I was pretty sure of this ahead of time (that is why I am here) but this month has just reinforced that fact. Archaeology is a lot of fun! It can be so frustrating sometimes but that is part of the beauty and mystery of it. It’s frustrating that you don’t have all the answers and that you might never have them, but its also really exciting because you are the one reviving history. Every day I get to work with things that have not been touched in hundreds of years, that have been buried deep in the earth and unseen by humans in millennia and that feeling is indescribable. There really is nothing like it and it is a feeling that I will remember for the rest of my life.