| Entry: | This is my first time at Catalhöyük, and this is my first diary entry of the season.
Today, we have begun our second week of excavating. We have been expanding the square of trench 5 on the west mound in the south-western and western corner whilst waiting for the workers to clear the already excavated areas of sandbags.
I have been stripping the upper layer of topsoil in the south-western corner, unit 15350. A skeleton was found in the northern part of the unit; feature 3340. We cleared an arbitrary layer of about 15 cm. of soil, and then we opened another unit to clear a second layer of topsoil, number 15357. We dug quite deep, about 30-40 cm. and uncovered the remaining part of wall 2424 that was buried beneath the topsoil. Both arbitrary layers of topsoil were also full of Chalcolithic and Byzantine ceramics, lithics, animal bones, worked stone, ceramics and bones and a few clay balls.
We had a light shower of rain this afternoon, quite unusual at this time of the year, but very welcome. Otherwise, the weather is not as hot and humid as I expected, but the tent over the excavation area obviously helps, too.
Evening hours are spent washing our finds and helping Ingmar sorting ceramics. I also got to help clean some of the bones of feature 3340. I am really excited about the variety of labs on site, and would very much like to visit and help out in all of them.
Early last week we had a fire alarm, as smoke was seen coming from east mound. It was, thankfully, a false alarm, but it did show that a need for routine fire drills is probably not a bad idea from now on.
On Thursday, a party for the local community was held, with locals invited to the compound for music, dancing and food. Selected items were brought out of the laboratories for people to look at, and local children stood by to explain what they were looking at. The children also put up a couple of plays, followed by music, dancing, food and more dancing. It was delightful. So was the afterparty.
Friday was our day off, so we went to the Hotel Dedeman in Konya to relax. After we returned on site in the evening, a team of skilled chefs/archaeologists led by Ingmar prepared an amazing supper for us, with wienerschnitzels, knödel and fruit salad for dessert. That was a good end to a good week. |
