I worked for a month in Turkey on the site of Antiochia ad Cragum. This is a site of great importance, as it was the regional capital, and because it is one of the few Roman sites to be excavated on the south coast of Turkey. This combination was perfect for learning the techniques for studying and the details of the classical world while allowing us to add to that knowledge by finding new information, especially since we were the first to excavate a domestic building in the region.
My goal for this internship was to try my hand at as many aspects of archeology as possible in order to get a basic understanding for the methods of archeology as a whole, as the understanding of how primary data is collected is important in any type of historical work. Seeing this goal my professor allowed me to chose which tasks to work on as I wished. I used this decision-making power to split the four weeks roughly equally between clearing a new site from brush and surface rocks in order for the units to be laid out, sifting the soil coming from an artifact-rich unit in a bath complex, and excavating a room of unknown purpose behind the bouleuterion with trowel and pick-axe. Along the way I reached out to different professors and specialists to be included in the process of uncovering and cleaning a mosaic with the conservators, uncovering an exceptionally well preserved kiln, washing pottery and making technical drawings of it, making a squish of an inscription, and doing surveying using Total Station.
Though archeology has been the main goal of this trip, it has pushed me to practice many other valuable skills. Working with other people requires team-building and a lot of communication not only to make the work as efficient as possible, but also to ensure the safety of everyone involved. Since the project was taking place in Turkey, many of my peers were Turkish, most of them with very limited knowledge of English. This pushed my abilities to communicate. I did pick up a little bit of Turkish, heavily supplementing it with gestures and Google Translate, which reassured my belief that the most important requirement for communication is the desire to communicate – if that is present, the other setbacks can be overcome.
