During the average dig day, you are often faced with nothing but a lot of dirt in front of you. \u00a0This monotonous work often leaves you with the natural desire for human connection, which can lead you through a whole spectrum of conversation with anyone who may be within earshot. \u00a0It was during one of these conversations that I let slip to Professor Howe that I was a certified scuba diver, and had been for quite some time. \u00a0Howe then informed me about the coincidental appearance of an underwater archaeology team right in our very own harbor, while simultaneously promising me he would talk to the Hoff (the head honcho on site) about me joining up with them for a little while to learn the ropes. \u00a0So, having just been offered the opportunity to pull myself out of the relentless heat and dust, and into the Mediterranean, I was understandably excited.<\/p>\n
Fast forward two weeks and I have been given permission to join up with the marine archaeology\u00a0team and am ready to go meet up with them. \u00a0The Turkish professor, Birol and I drove down to the lot above the coves and harbor, and hiked on down to the shore. \u00a0And what was there waiting for us? \u00a0Absolutely nothing. \u00a0Thinking that they might be on the other side of the ridge, Birol sent me back up the hill and down to the other side to the coves with nothing other than the instructions, “make it fast.” \u00a0When we came to the full realization that we were truly on our own, we begrudgingly hiked back up to the car and back to the dig site. \u00a0Where I remained for the next three hours until several very hot, tired, and confused people in wetsuits came trudging up the trail to the acropolis searching for me. \u00a0So back down we went to the harbor and to their boat. \u00a0Where I spent the rest of the day having an amazing time doing survey dives of the harbor with the team.<\/p>\n
By the end of the day the team came to the conclusion that there was not enough in the harbor to keep them there, along with the fact that they did not have any actual retrieval permits for that area. \u00a0Leading them to decide to head to Alanya earlier than expected to do some excavations there. \u00a0But since they still wanted me to dive with them, and were expecting both Hoff and Birol to be with them the next day, they needed to let them know the change-up in plans. \u00a0This in itself was a problem. \u00a0They had no internet connection, no cell service, and no suitable place to light a sufficient fire for smoke signals. \u00a0This left only me, to act as the human carrier pigeon.<\/p>\n
With the (questionable) plan in place, (somewhat) they loaded me up with marine archaeology books, posters, and a very nice hat! \u00a0And then promptly\u00a0rafted me back to shore. \u00a0From there I was supposed to find Rami, the dig site security man, and convince him to give me a lift back to Gazipasa, about a half hour drive away. \u00a0Rami, as it turned out, was\u00a0gone, I realized I might be in trouble. \u00a0I hoofed it to the highway from the harbor, about a ten-kilometer hike, and then about 2 kilometers down the highway, the entire time trying to hitch a ride, but to no avail. \u00a0This is about the time that I realized I hadn’t been sweating for quite some time, which is really an odd occurrence in 95 degree heat, with 80% humidity. \u00a0Thankfully, some locals noticed as well that I wasn’t looking my best, came rushing outside, grabbing me by the arms, pulling me into their home and proceeding to force feed me chai tea for the next half hour, speaking rapid-fire Turkish to me the entire time. \u00a0The oddity of the whole situation, combined with the confusion brought on by my heat addled brain, left me in a confused state that I can only liken to a toddler being put at the big kids table.<\/p>\n
Once they decided that I wasn’t about to keel over in their dining room, they once again grabbed me by the arms and dragged me outside where they were able to hail the very first vehicle that passed, convincing him to take me the rest of the way to Gazipasa. \u00a0I finally made it back to the dig house, ingested the appropriate amount of water for an elephant, and then successfully relayed the new information to the proper authorities… \u00a0Only to be informed by Hoff that he felt it was too much of an inconvenience to make the extra 15 minute drive to Alanya to see the team, thus officially ending the fiasco that was this entire endeavor.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
During the average dig day, you are often faced with nothing but a lot of dirt in front of you. \u00a0This monotonous work often leaves you with the natural desire for human connection, which can lead you through a whole spectrum of conversation with anyone who may be within earshot. \u00a0It was during one of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1412,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1451","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-research-blog"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4Iz8A-np","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pages.stolaf.edu\/antiochia2014\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1451","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pages.stolaf.edu\/antiochia2014\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pages.stolaf.edu\/antiochia2014\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pages.stolaf.edu\/antiochia2014\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1412"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pages.stolaf.edu\/antiochia2014\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1451"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/pages.stolaf.edu\/antiochia2014\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1451\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1461,"href":"https:\/\/pages.stolaf.edu\/antiochia2014\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1451\/revisions\/1461"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pages.stolaf.edu\/antiochia2014\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1451"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pages.stolaf.edu\/antiochia2014\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1451"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pages.stolaf.edu\/antiochia2014\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1451"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}