Space for Farming

As a sociology and anthropology major, I find the concept of space fascinating. How the environment in which people live shapes their lives, and in turn how people change their own environments to make it more suitable to the kind of lives they wish to live is...

Simple Pleasures

The nature of our work here in Turkey means that you’re going to be uncomfortable a lot of the time. It’s hot, it’s sticky, it’s dirty. No matter how much water you drink, it never feels like enough. You burn through calories at an alarming rate, meaning you work with...

Ponderings

Archeology is a guessing game. We hypothesis, analyze, postulate – trying to understand what is happening in our trench and what that says about what is happening in the surrounding area. This can be difficult. Nothing an archeologist says is 100 %. Rather it is what...

Sometimes, Blindness is Bliss

I like swimming with goggles. There’s something about being able to see what’s going on in the water around you (where the pool wall is how deep the bottom is, what’s creeping up on you, etc) that I’ve always found comforting. Well, that and it keeps my eyes from...

Dirt

Dirt. But here we call it soil. Soil is a formal, clean, refined term for granular substance produced by millions of years of erosion. Soil is not as worthless, filthy, or dirty as dirt. Soil is simply something, a barrier between us and whatever lies beneath our...

Off the Cliff

A soft mist pervades the mountain side, fountains of light trickling through to illuminate the terraced banana plantation. The sound of swallows hunting insects overhead blends with that of waves lapping against the shore. I breathe it all in, basking in the beauty of...

Week 2 Busted Knee

As we’ve continued learning the necessities in working at our site, such as taking measurements to see how deep we’ve dug at the end of the day and labeling our finds (such as a glass base, bones, pottery, and architectural remains) in bags, I’ve had...

Adventures of The Filthy Five (Part One)

It was a hot day, like every other, in the land of Turkey when Kirbus the Great looked upon the dusty walls of his new home on the Cragos of Antiochia.  Accompanied by his faithful, and wiser, companions Anna the Fearless and Lizzy the Mighty, Kirbus directed his eyes...

Slaving Away

When I first decided to take this course, I knew that I would be immersed in ancient history, but it was only during this past week that I realized the extent to which that this was possible. In attempts to work on wall preservation, I re-enacted the process that the...

My Morning Ritual

Never have I hated an alarm clock so much. Every morning, at five o’clock sharp, I drag myself out of bed and feel my way to the light switch, received by a chorus of groans from the other five girls in the room. For the next half hour, I bumble around the room,...