{"id":3781,"date":"2026-07-18T08:30:29","date_gmt":"2026-07-18T13:30:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/pages.stolaf.edu\/antiochia2014\/?p=3781"},"modified":"2026-07-18T08:30:29","modified_gmt":"2026-07-18T13:30:29","slug":"glutensiz-archaeology","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/pages.stolaf.edu\/antiochia2014\/2026\/07\/18\/glutensiz-archaeology\/","title":{"rendered":"Gl\u00fctensiz Archaeology\u00a0"},"content":{"rendered":"

These first few days working at Antiochia have been simultaneously extremely challenging, interesting, and rewarding. I have been deeply interested in archaeology since I was very young, but this is the first time I have had the opportunity to participate in fieldwork. Going into this trip, I read previous students’ blog posts from last year about their first week and expected it to be very difficult and exhausting work. It IS challenging, BUT it has also been so amazing.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Dealing with the heat and the humidity has honestly been harder for me than the work itself. I really enjoy tedious tasks, so the work is generally not as challenging as the Turkish weather. The heat and humidity exhausted me more than the digging for the first few days. Only now, after about a week, am I getting used to it.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

After two days working with Audrey, Cait, and the rest of the group of St. Olaf students, I was selected to be part of the first group of students to help with the emergency excavation of the Great Baths. I am currently working under the Turkish grad student Yunus to excavate an outer storeroom of the baths. There is a large burnt piece of wood in the center of the room that we are currently working to excavate around. The original hypothesis was that the wood was a beam from the ceiling that burned down; we uncovered several patches of burnt charcoal around the room, leading me to hypothesize that the wood may be a fallen tree instead of the beam as originally thought. I\u2019m having so much fun thinking about what Antiochia once was and how the buildings were set up and used.<\/span><\/p>\n

I\u2019ve learned so much about archaeology and about myself in such a short amount of time. Before the dig, I had only read about excavation; I never did it myself. Now I\u2019m learning about the correct tools and techniques to use in a variety of different situations. I also learned more about myself and how I work. I have an autoimmune disease, which can sometimes limit the work I can do, but I\u2019m also finding out what my limits are. My attitude is also shifting slightly. After the first day or two of digging, I was having a hard time; now that I\u2019ve been here longer and am getting used to the climate, I\u2019m feeling much better. Additionally, I am usually a very black-and-white thinker who appreciates having one correct answer. In the field of archaeology, there is no way to know that a theory is 100% correct. There is always going to be some uncertainty. We can\u2019t go back in time and see what actually happened, so we can only make an educated guess, which can always change with any new information that comes to light.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Moving away from archaeology, I have been having an amazing time in T\u00fcrkiye. Gazipa\u015fa is such an amazing place to be staying, and I\u2019ve been loving all the activities and restaurants. The restaurant where we eat dinner on weeknights, \u015eef\u0131m, has a few gluten-free options. I\u2019ve only tried one so far, the adana kebab, but it’s delicious! I\u2019ve even learned how to say gluten-free in Turkish: gl\u00fctensiz! Out of everything I\u2019ve done so far, my favorite place I\u2019ve visited is B\u0131d\u0131 B\u0131d\u0131 Beach. The water was so refreshing after all the hard work we\u2019ve been doing, and the rock beach was absolutely breathtaking. My suitcase is going to be much heavier than when I arrived if I keep collecting so many rocks. I was originally quite nervous about coming to a country and not understanding the language around me, but I\u2019ve gotten a lot more comfortable with it more quickly than I thought. All the people I\u2019ve met here have been very kind and understanding of my lack of Turkish language skills.<\/span><\/p>\n

Overall, this first week has been amazing, and I can\u2019t wait to see what the next three weeks here have in store for me!<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

These first few days working at Antiochia have been simultaneously extremely challenging, interesting, and rewarding. I have been deeply interested in archaeology since I was very young, but this is the first time I have had the opportunity to participate in fieldwork. Going into this trip, I read previous students’ blog posts from last year […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5726,"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_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_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},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3781","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-YZ","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pages.stolaf.edu\/antiochia2014\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3781","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\/5726"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pages.stolaf.edu\/antiochia2014\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3781"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/pages.stolaf.edu\/antiochia2014\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3781\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3786,"href":"https:\/\/pages.stolaf.edu\/antiochia2014\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3781\/revisions\/3786"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pages.stolaf.edu\/antiochia2014\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3781"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pages.stolaf.edu\/antiochia2014\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3781"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pages.stolaf.edu\/antiochia2014\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3781"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}