Now that I have spent a month of my life not only outside of Minnesota, not only outside of America, but in somewhere so radically different as Turkey, I have a lot to say about what I have taken away from this experience and what others could expect from this in the future.
If anyone reading this is considering taking on this internship I have some advice worth considering. This was not an easy month. Don’t get me wrong, I had an absolute blast on this trip. I learned so much about the archaeological process, I learned and interacted with Turkish culture in ways I’ve never really thought possible and I have began and reinforced friendships that may last my entire life. It has been a dream to go on this trip, but it is not a vacation: you will work, you will be tired, you will not always have fun. If you’ve ever thought that Minnesota was a little hot–as I naively did–Gazipasa is an entirely different beast. I had to take a rest day at one point because I was so fatigued that I considered work that day to be a genuine risk to my well being, and I was not the only person to take days off to recover. From that statement it might seem like I’m saying this trip will brutalize you, but that’s not what I’m aiming at. What I’m aiming at is that this trip is not for the faint of body or spirit. Will you be expected to work, yes; will that work tire you out most days of the trip, yes; are you at any real risk of harm, no, I wouldn’t say so. The thing with this trip is that it will reforge you. You won’t walk away a new person, but you’ll walk away different than when you arrived. The surrealness of the situation, the camaraderie with your coworkers/friends and physical and mental strains smooth out your rough edges. I feel like a rejuvenated person in the wake of this adventure; I am fuller in intelligence and vigor and kindness, I have a revitalized drive to create and learn and love. That’s not something that comes from just any excursion or trip, it requires a forge hot enough, yet gentle enough to break you down so you come out stronger. Not every metal can endure the heat though, so I pose this thought. Do you think you can do this? You don’t have to be the strongest or the smartest or the best archaeologist to go–that’s not even remotely the point of the trip–what you have to be is driven enough to break yourself down, humble enough to learn from this strange and beautiful opportunity, and courageous enough to grow from it. That’s how you know this is the trip for you.
Having said all of that, I’m still not sure where archaeology and I sit. I loved all the work I did on this trip and would love the opportunity to do more work like this in the future, but I don’t know the extent to which I want to do this. There was a person working on the site who really intrigued me and inspired me and I want to share what I thought of him. His name is Dennis. He is an engineer who helped design and build spaceships. He had an incredibly complicated yet lucrative and successful career, and what does he do with his free time, especially now that he’s retired. He studies ancient cisterns. This man just adores ancient water systems like aqueducts and pipe systems, baths and cisterns. He still built spaceships, still had his professional career, but he didn’t devote himself completely to one thing when many things made him happy. He is a man of many talents, many interests and many drives. Part of my hesitance in pursuing archaeology is because I’ve always felt my career is an all or nothing gamble; what I choose is what I get, regardless on if it makes me money, or makes me happy, or makes me feel accomplished. Yet Dennis proves that, while I do have to choose my interests and my ambitions, I am not limited by them. I can sustain many careers of my merit and my insight, and that is a humbling and inspiring message.
One of my favorite memories from this trip was actually quite recent. On the last day of excavations, we needed to take down our shades that we’d been using for the past few weeks for drone photographs of our units. At first I was mildly miffed by the change; I remembered what it was like working in the sun without those shades and it was far less nice than the alternative. It turned out to be true. Despite the day being cooler than most, I still got annoyed by the intense sunlight (I was fine, it’s just funnier to be hyperbolic) but what happened afterwards turned out to be far more refreshing than the shades would have been that day. I saw our work literally in an entirely different light. The exposed and articulated walls looked straight out of the sites in Rome or Athens or Istanbul, showing details of the houses we were excavating and insights into the lives of people a thousand years dead. This all occurred in Gazipasa, Antalya, a place in Turkey more akin to somewhere like Mankato, Minnesota than it is different. It’s not famous, it’s not well known, it’s a backwater to other Turks. All the Turkish people I told about where I was since I’ve been in Istanbul requires explanation. And yet, in a place I’d not heard of when signing up in a place unknown or forgotten by most people within the country, we’re uncovering the stories of people forgotten to much of history. We didn’t find some imperial palace or grand mausoleum, but we found an impressive upper class house on the side of an acropolis overlooking the ocean in some of the most beautiful views I’ve ever seen. It’s moments like that that make a trip. Not the places or events you expect to be great, but the little things that coalesce into a surreal experience you’ll remember forever.
Teşekkürler Türkiye, until we meet again,
Matt Olson