{"id":3866,"date":"2026-07-26T08:33:12","date_gmt":"2026-07-26T13:33:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/pages.stolaf.edu\/antiochia2014\/?p=3866"},"modified":"2026-07-26T08:33:12","modified_gmt":"2026-07-26T13:33:12","slug":"rock-party-anyone","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/pages.stolaf.edu\/antiochia2014\/2026\/07\/26\/rock-party-anyone\/","title":{"rendered":"Rock Party, Anyone?"},"content":{"rendered":"

As I am officially halfway through my internship in T\u00fcrkiye, many new things have altered my perspectives about archaeology. I think that being able to start on new contextual layers in my unit has definitely helped with maintaining a level of optimism. It helps me want to work hard to uncover more and more information about what might hide within my unit. When we work through goals for the day, my first thought is to start and end an entire locus in one day. One of the most exciting parts so far is just seeing the units transform. I hated throwing away pottery sherds because they were out of context, but now it’s so fun being able to collect them and study them in a way that will help us understand more about the significance of each unit.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

On that note, what the heck was happening in ANS 9? Our first day working on the unit meant clearing away rocks, debris, roots, and surface material. It wasn\u2019t until day two that we discovered a few rocks on the surface about a foot outside of our original border that seemed to make us think that there could be a wall. We were so excited when, after a ten-centimeter pass and completing our first locus, the rocks indeed appeared to be laid out in a pattern and overlapping each other. I wonder, since this wall doesn\u2019t begin when the neighboring unit\u2019s wall begins, and we haven\u2019t uncovered a plaster floor yet, if my unit could have been some kind of terrace or courtyard? We find a lot of bones, and there must have been an earthquake to have caused all the wall falls we have encountered. I am curious about what might be discovered once we are finally able to remove all the rocks that are covering almost the entirety of our unit. Will my hypothesis change once a few more passes are completed? Most likely, since this unit is at the bottom of a hill, a lot of artifacts will tumble down and land against that wall we found, plus the results from earthquakes will make it hard to determine this space until more contexts are cleared. There seem to be a suspicious few rocks that make me think it could have been a doorway or side entrance, but this is still to be determined. I think it could be a wall because we keep finding mortar around some of the nearby rocks, which is how we found our first wall! As we transition into phase two of this internship, I will be curious to see what the next group of archaeologists will discover in ANS 9. What kind of artifacts will be uncovered beneath all the wall fall and air pockets? Will there be more coins found? How will the patterns and design trends of pottery change when more and more sherds continue to be found?\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

As we have been here for three weeks now, an area of interest that seems fascinating to learn more about is ceramics and artwork. It would be great to be able to combine pottery and ceramics with archaeology. Working with restoration, it would be interesting to be able to recreate pottery found in the field for museums or identification purposes. I have years of practice with pottery, building, glazing, firing, etc. I think it would be fun to learn about ancient techniques in creating and restoring pottery. Similarly, I think drawing and cataloguing pieces found would be interesting too.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

It would be silly to end without mentioning my real hypothesis for my unit. Something that has stood out to my group since beginning the excavation on ANS 9 was all the bone we\u2019ve uncovered. I think it is obvious that something very sinister happened in that exact spot many, many years ago. So I\u2019m thinking pirates probably invaded and murdered all the nearby animals in the area because they were witnesses to a pirate invasion. Instead of an earthquake, the pirates pushed down the wall to cover up all the evidence of any murders at all!<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

As I am officially halfway through my internship in T\u00fcrkiye, many new things have altered my perspectives about archaeology. I think that being able to start on new contextual layers in my unit has definitely helped with maintaining a level of optimism. It helps me want to work hard to uncover more and more information […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5732,"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-3866","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-10m","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pages.stolaf.edu\/antiochia2014\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3866","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\/5732"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pages.stolaf.edu\/antiochia2014\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3866"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/pages.stolaf.edu\/antiochia2014\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3866\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3881,"href":"https:\/\/pages.stolaf.edu\/antiochia2014\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3866\/revisions\/3881"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pages.stolaf.edu\/antiochia2014\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3866"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pages.stolaf.edu\/antiochia2014\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3866"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pages.stolaf.edu\/antiochia2014\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3866"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}