It’s been one hell of a month living and working in Turkey, but I’d say that I enjoyed every aspect of it. People coming here should know that this is not a vacation in the slightest; rather, this is a field school where you are expected to work every day of the week and pull your own weight consistently. Make sure you come prepared with personal health equipment and expendable clothing- lots of socks, underwear, and breathable shirts and shorts/pants. The nature of the work here is suitable for people of any academic field, even outside of the humanities. Pretty much as long as you can work hard and show some enthusiasm, you’re good to go.
If you’re looking for some good and authentic Turkish cuisine, make sure to hit up the local Burger King/Popeyes combo restaurant. The food poisoning will only take you out for a couple days, trust me. But in all honesty, there’s some great restaurants around the town where you stay, like Kokomix and the meat and fish place (I don’t know the full name but that’s what it said on the sign). My personal favorite dish was sac kavurma, a sautéed lamb dish that tastes out of this world. Another place you NEED to go after a long day of manual labor is Body Store, the local Turkish gym. It smells so good in there. The jewelry market is a great place to get gifts for people, and Sali Pazari is the Turkish Walmart- you can get just about everything you need there, including a shiny new sink. If you just wander around town for a while during your free time, you’ll discover lots of fun little places to eat, shop, or just sit down for a while to escape the oppressive sun.
I would love to go on another archaeological excavation. Coming into this, I was on the fence about pursuing archaeology as a career. I still don’t know for sure if it’s what I’ll go for, but I now consider it a realistic option for myself and can imagine myself doing it long-term. I’ve learned a lot about rocks- mainly how to eyeball their weights to guess if I would keel over after trying to move it. In all seriousness, learning one’s physical limits when working in a situation that requires a steady pace and prioritizes avoidance of strain/injury is a major part of my experience here. I feel like being here has also de-sanctified the physicality of the site and artifacts we work with- in a good way. By that I mean that what we find may have once been part of a past world, but now exists just the same as anything else does with us. Should we treat it well and preserve it for examination? Of course, but that does not mean it should be worshipped and placed on some imaginary scale of importance. Everything we find is important, whether it be a tiny bit of pottery or a stunning glass bezel. As archaeologists, we are there to discover pieces of the past and preserve what we can, but judgements over value and purpose are its own separate ordeal.