After spending about a month in the hot, humid Mediterranean weather, this experience has come to an end. I really enjoyed it and learned so much. A lot of the things I learned were small bits of information and details that really help to see bigger pictures of what one might be looking at. It might sound like small simple things but I learned that if the Romans used rain gutters, they were usually by the bottom of a building and not the top; I learned this when my group found a feature that looked like it might be some kind of channel or gutter. It turned out to be a door locking slot. I also learned that for door thresholds, large, flat monolithic stones were used and they would have holes carved into them to put door posts. I learned that if marble is fired/heated, you can make quick lime which is used in cement making. I also learned that sometimes, walls were painted to look like marble, much like people do nowadays. These might seem like small bits of information by themselves but when used to look at the bigger picture, they tell so much of how people 2000 years ago lived. And surprisingly, it was not very different from how people live today. Another thing that I learned, that I absolutely love and will keep restating and telling everyone I know is that the plants of this region are adapted to survive AND WON’T DIE!! Try as we might, they will not die; all the roots we pulled and cut this season from the plants that had taken over our excavation site will grow right back and will have to be pulled and cut again next year. I find it absolutely amusing that humans can try their hardest but the Earth works harder.
I think the most memorable experience I had was the whole project itself; I was hesitant to even apply for this research opportunity at first but I’m really glad I did. But one thing that stands out the most from this project is that in the little 3×3 meter unit that my group worked in for three weeks, we removed about 2 meters and 1600 years of soil and stones to uncover someone’s home again. The feature that we found, that ended up being one of the locking slots for a door, the remains of a door threshold with the hole for the door post, and the walls that made up that walls and entrance alcove; these were all parts of a house. I had stood right on the same stones that people stood on 1600 years before. I helped uncover the threshold that held up their door, the lock that provided safety. Aside from having the memories I made from working on the site itself, I think having the memories of uncovering a home that was once lived in is what will stay with me the most.
I believe I mentioned this before but I never knew how much patience an archaeologist actually needed. My perceptions of archaeology had been that you would have a little unit that you would work on, everything was flat and cleaned of any organic material, and that you would use small brushes to uncover amazing ancient artifacts. In some cases, this might be true, if one is working on something like a mosaic and it is right there under the surface. For us, we had to clean away the organic material ourselves, we had to dig down about a meter and a half before we even began to find anything, and we certainly did not do it with small brushes, we would have been digging forever if we used small painters brushes to go down 2 meters. This all required a lot of patience and it also required to be a little objective, to simply look at the facts. That meant we could not chase walls or doors or corners that we thought might be just a few more centimeters down or a few more centimeters into the hill. We had to go with the passes of 5cm and evaluate what we found after. I had to explain it to my parents a bit that we were not excavating to find something specific, we were excavating to see what our findings could tell us about how these people lived.
For those reading this and debating whether you should go or not. I say go for it, this might be your one shot at getting to do something like this so don’t miss the chance to experience a beautiful culture and amazing pieces of history. We always learned about how the ancients were doing such amazing things, well you could have the chance to go and discover exactly what these amazing things were. I’d just make sure to pack sunscreen and a nice wide hat, it’s very sunny and hot. I also recommend taking a bandana with you to wipe your face, unless you’d like to look like a chimney sweeper from Mary Poppins. In Gazipaşa, don’t miss trying Iceberry Gazipaşa, it’s an ice cream milkshake place that has waffles and boba drinks as well. According to our surveyor, Brian, it’s been owned by the same family for many years and the dondurma (ice cream in Turkish) is amazing, as are the milkshakes. And always eat dondurma when you get the chance, never pass it up. It’s goopy and a little chewy and yummy.
For this particular archaeological excavation, I don’t think I’ll be participating again and not for any bad reasons. I saw this as an opportunity to experience new things; culture, archaeological practices, and techniques, etc., and a way to learn new skills in archaeology, something I wish to continue doing as a possible career. I participated and experienced new things and learned new skills, now it’s time for me to find new experiences and see what other new skills I can learn. I definitely want to keep excavating as a student of anthropology and archaeology and maybe next year I can do that again in a completely different region, like Central or South America. I hope to participate in another archaeological excavation, but I believe my time at Antiochia has come to an end, at least for the moment. That’s not to say there is nothing left that Antiochia can teach me, I don’t think anyone can ever stop learning new things at Antiochia but I want to go and learn new things at a different site. I might return to Antiochia in the future and I would love to do that, but while I am still a college student, I want to try as many things as possible to really get a broad experience of what archaeology can be.