I’m extremely excited to see the mosaics that have been uncovered at the site. Thinking about it, it’s amazing that some of these art pieces have survived through so much history: battles, earthquakes, weather, and they still stood the test of time. Stone carvings and architecture are important and powerful, and there’s much to learn from them, maybe even more than mosaics, but the delicacy and intricacy of the carefully put-together piece reflect a choice made by artisans. The stories that you can see just by looking at the pieces for a second are amazing and could help us find things that might not have been noticed before. I’ve always been an artist, and to me, art is a way to share stories. You can tell a whole story and a flurry of emotions in opera, or in just a song, and the same is true for the arts of craftsmanship.
I’m really drawn to the necropolis at Antiochia ad Cragum, to me, to where the ancient city becomes the most human. Although I imagine there are differences in the quality of the sarcophagi and tombs, here, you can see deeper into the connections of the people and the city itself, and those differences in quality would highlight that. But in the necropolis, everyone who once lived in that city is standing on equal ground now. We would be standing at the city’s emotional center point, where people remember stories about others who have passed, their loved ones, and who they were as individuals. It’s a part of the sight that would feel quiet and scared, and deeply personal across history. Seeing people or things for who they really are is a big part of my personal morals, and being able to observe tombs and sarcophagi and observing these different lives on the same level will allow me to understand just who these people were.
Professor Howe invited us to his home at the end of the school year to try some Turkish/Mediterranean food, and I was hooked. I can’t wait the experience the culture of Turkey, learning how to live when you go to a place that you’ve never been to before, trying new things (like food), meeting new people, and just experiencing a different area completely. I can’t wait to experience everything. I’d like to get a group of students from our group and just go out and try a bunch of different dishes, now granted, I dont speak the language, so it could be scary to just throw ourselves out like that, but as a group I think it would actually be really fun, and im sure that we would pick up some things that would be helpful along the way.