| Entry: | Its been a hectic couple of days, although it seems as though things are finally settling down. I’ve been here since the 19th of June, and it already feels like I’ve actually never left. Exploring those feelings are for another day though.
The season started with a shortage of workers and much soil to be moved, holding down progress in the North Shelter for a few days. We began taking off the backfill of Building 3 immediately as the season began, and were finally done with over 9 tons of earth on Monday, July 1st. In the mean time we’ve been working on defining Spaces 73, 38, 39, 40, and 18 east of B.1; Sp. 85 west of the trench of B.3; Sp.84 south of B.77; and spaces 95, 96, 99 and 101 south of the B.3 trench.
Arne has begun working with Maciej in Space 84. There was a bit of a wall puzzle to be solved there, which seemed to have resolved itself today. At first I thought F.3623 and F.3627 establishing the SE corner of a building sat above F.3624. In fact, upon some prodding and mini-sondaging, it seems as though F.3624 belongs to an upper building. While this wasn’t apparent at the first look, it does make sense since the later walls of a building are almost stepped in. Its important to note that just because a wall survives higher doesn’t mean it is actually stratigraphically later. So Sp.84 is now defined by a rather eroded northern wall, a southern wall and an eastern wall. It is associated with burials F.6065 and F.3088 excavated in 2008(?) and burial F.3622, excavated by Asa this year. This latter burial made it clear that the layered plaster marks by the Northeastern edge of the space are the last remains of a platform. At least that is what all evidence points towards.
Anyhow, seems like I’ve got carried away with the archaeology. What I really wanted to reflect on this entry was the backfill of the BACH trench. After the arrival of the excavation teams focused all energy to this are to get the soil out. It was an incredible experience. The more fill we got through, the more I felt awkward about the process. All I could think of was Ruth and Mira’s laughter, and their gentle music spilling out of their tent during the excavation time. I remember how each corner of the building would have one of two archaeologists working, while Jason and Michael would be filming the happenings. There was always such a buzz, and I remember the day Ruth began the process of infilling the trench, how she cried and left that coin for a future archaeologist to find. I kept thinking about that coin. And how I would feel if I did find it at the bottom of the trench. Well, it seems as though Ruth has truly left a mark for the future as it was not found by us, and still remains to be discovered.
Beyond awaking memories, the excavation of B.3 has been emotional for me as it took me back to my relationship with Ruth, the work she wanted to accomplish here, and inevitably my PhD years in Berkeley.
Ruth liked to talked about B.3 in the present. She’d go over the details of the daily schedule, how it fluctuated from silent trowelling to gentle conversations and brushing to abrupt bursts of laughter at times. How the texture and the colour of the floors dictated their decisions in excavations.
How so many archaeologists co-habited B.3 with the remnants of its Neolithic inhabitants. In a way saying, but never perhaps so openly saying, how they defined that space with their own experiences and dreams.
In grad school I was always a bit skeptical of phenomenological approaches to the past thinking of the impossibility of understanding of what the people of the past would really feel. This skepticism did not allow me to see the real value of such approaches, mainly openly admitting that we construct the past through the present, and that it is actually ok to be in the present, with the past.
So here I am at Çatalhöyük again, finally grasping Ruth’s dreams. And following her steps in ways I had never thought I would...
I’ll return to the archaeology tomorrow. Now its time to enjoy a Tuesday night fire with Burcin and his team, as they'll be leaving us early on Thursday. I'll be missing their presence. |
