| Entry: | SHAHINA 17/4/99
We’ve just completed our first full week of excavation of the 6 month season with all personnel but as I’ve been here since the 30th March I thought I would recap on events so far and then discuss the excavation area and strategy.
Khan, Louise D. and I flew out on the 29th March, spent a night in Istanbul and drove down to site on 30th, leaving Istanbul at 5.30 am and arriving at site at 4.30 pm. The site hadn’t been opened by the local staff as we arrived in the middle of the bayram. The kitchen was a bit of a state as birds and mice had taken residence so we headed back for Çumra to buy essentials, bumped into the cook who had shops opened for us to buy gas and food and cleaning material. Our first night was freezing.
On the 31st we walked the irrigation channels dug around the perimeter of the site during our absence established for control of the water table.
The next few days were slow and uncomfortable as we had no heaters or hot water and we were only three, joined on the second evening by Candan hanim and the third day by Osman bey our two representatives. Slowly the house was put in order, the house staff were employed on the 31st and some of the workmen on the 1st April to empty labs, set up the flotation tanks etc.
We took Friday 2nd off, went to Konya to shop for equipment.
Saturday the workmen emptied out the flotation system sumps and designed a drainage channel to Osman beys specification, along the southern edge of the Bach area as rain water had washed under the shelter had scored a shallow channel through the excavation area.
I think it was Saturday that we walked the site with the reps. It’s amazing to see the site at this time of the year, the first time for all of us, it’s all so green and lush with the distant mountains covered in snow. This was intended simply as a walk across the mound outlining the area to be excavated but not too much detail as Ian would elaborate on his arrival on the 9th April. The first job to be done was to continue infilling the deep areas Mellaart had excavated in the region of shrine 29 using spoil that had been transported from the North and Bach areas at the end of last season but which had been stockpiled at the top because we had run out of time. However we were informed we needed permission from Ankara before we could do this. The issue of deep excavations and consequent but necessary wall removal was also raised. This was clearly a problem as the reps had a letter, a reply to Ians to the Director General, which neither Ian nor I had seen as we both left the country and it hadn’t caught up with us, which clearly stated we could not remove any Neolithic walls. The reps. kindly wrote a reply on our behalf, stating the situation in that the walls had been exposed since the 60’s and were heavily eroded and collapsing. This was the beginning of a long drawn out and difficult situation which concluded in Ankara on the 12th in a meeting with the Dir.Gen., Ian, Roger Matthews and Ayfer. The result is that our area of excavation as planned for the last few months including careful timetabling, budgeting and designing shelter and shoring etc. has to be abandoned and a new area excavated.
The area was to have straddled a variety of building types in a 9 x 9 m area at the top stepping down to a 5 x 5 m area at the base and 5 m in depth. This would have involved the excavation of all of space 117/ building 2, a third of the midden area space 115, all of shrine 8 ( from now on known as building 7), all of space 159 (ante chamber of shrine 10) and most of shrine 10 ( from now on known as building 6). Now the areas to be excavated are the row Mellaart called shrines 1, 8 and 10 now numbered buildings 8, 7 and 6. The eroded walls Mellaart exposed can be excavated down to a stable horizon. Within these buildings we will only be able to step in once so the sections will be 2 - 3 m high and will need careful maintenance and shoring, leaving us with basal areas of c. 3 x 4 m . The objective of this is that it will not involve the removal of any walls, but we will lose relationship to walls. The one convenience to us is that we will not expose any wall art which would have posed practical problems.
Sunday 4th April we began clearing the South area (previously called the Mellaart area), of backfill and Basak arrived from Ankara.
Monday 5th the finds depot was opened by Yasar bey from Konya museum and we were then able to set the finds lab up by moving crates of heavy residue and survey material to other areas of the building. We expect to have problems by the end of this season in finding space to store all of our finds. We will need more storage space.
Monday night Pete, Richard and Charlie arrived having spent an enforced holiday in Istanbul since the 2nd waiting for t he end of the public holiday when they could pick up the minibus loaned from Koç group and computers donated by Koç systems. By now we had heaters and hot water installed, the dig house was ready for everyone's arrival.
Tuesday 6th Khan, Osman bey and I went to visit the Jandarma, the Kaymakan and the Belediye. (we may have gone to the jandarma a few days before?). Courtesy calls that went well, only the jandarma wanted all of us to fill out some forms for them to have on record.
Wed morning Anja and Craig arrived.
By the end of Thursday the area of excavation was cleaned and ready for excavation (this was before the changes).
Thursday afternoon we had a surprise visit from the Kaymakan and Belediye. They’d brought plans for a proposed recreation area they are working on for the area to the north west of the site. This plan includes mudbrick motels, casinos, restaurants, picnic areas, swimming pools, ... They wanted some archaeological information from us to help their proposal.
Friday morning John, Lucy, Amanda and Andy arrived and late at night Ian, Louise M, Jez and Ayfer arrived. Sat morning Julie and Sheelagh arrived.
Sat and Sun were mad as Ian and Ayfer had a lot to pack in before they left on Monday morning. Basically we had lots of meetings to discuss the aims and strategies of the 6 month season, wages for the local teams were discussed, local doctors were contacted to be available to the team should the need arise, interviews for a camp manager took place (we’ve still not found one which is added strain on some of us), alternate strategies for the excavation area were discussed in detail; plans drawn up etc. Plus on Sunday an important delegation of officials from Konya museum and Ankara came to visit the site, this was organised by the Minnesota team (Mutlu, Berna and Mine were present) to discuss the possibility of making casts for display in the visitor centre. We also had a meeting with the contractors of the dig house for general building repair and maintenance.
Monday Ian and Ayfer left, Wednesday Louise Martin left. Thursday Osman bey, Khan and myself went to the Emniyet in Konya which was a horrible experience but we were able to succeed in our mission. Konya was packed and crowded with political rallies for the general elections on the 18th April, the streets were crowded and police and army everywhere and we were running around trying to get into official buildings for signatures on hundreds of forms for our residence permits to be processed. The whole day was surreal.
From all the above (and there’s plenty more ) it should be clear that I’ve not spent much time on site but as long as the work is being done then I guess I’m doing my job and the cook assures me that things will calm down.
The archaeology.
We had already cleaned the 9 x 9 m area we had intended to dig by the time the decision was made to move and it seemed senseless to abandon building 2 at this stage having worked in there for the last 3 seasons so we’ re trying to finish it (space 117 only, not space 116 unless time allows later) whilst the new area is being cleaned, also the walls will not survive another season. Craig and Pete are digging at a great pace and it has to be stressed how much clearer and quicker excavation is without the restrictions of baulks. Craig has dug at least 4 more ovens or hearths on top of those excavated last season by Sue and Pete, all of which appear at this stage to be different phases.
Earlier on in the week part of wall 66 collapsed overnight ( it was also the one morning when we had frost). Because a large portion of wall 66 looked insecure we decided to excavate as much as we could down to a more solid horizon before more wall collapsed on someone's head. Whilst Pete was cleaning the wall face he found painting of a geometric pattern in the north corner of the east wall which we’re leaving for the conservator to deal with when he arrives in a few days time. However, meanwhile another section of the wall collapsed and very luckily Pete had just moved away. This area to the east of the north wall 64 also shows traces of paint. I just hope the wall survives until we can deal with the painting, quite what we do after that I don’t know as we’re not allowed to excavate the walls but it is quite clear that the walls will collapse during the season and we will lose crucial wall phasing information, also by collapsing other walls will also weaken and likely collapse. I suppose the solution is that we backfill as soon as the floors are dug but will we have to get permission from Ankara to backfill?
The midden area, Space 115 is also under excavation at the moment despite it being outside our new area because we need to release it’s south wall which is an eroded Mellaart north wall to building 7 which we can remove. Richard and Jez have been excavating large dump type layers with some finer layers and lenses of ‘midden’, but generally, as was noted last season, there are less of the fine ashy lenses we term ‘midden’ and more like building debris and rubble, similar to those infilling building 2, so we could see a similar scenario whereby the underlying building was abandoned and left to infill over time with primary deposition dumps of rubbish and refuse and gradually as it levelled off the area was used as an ‘open’ area. In fact these deposits DO represent the same sequence as the infill to building 2 as space 115 is equivalent to Mellaart level VIII and building 2 level IX and space 115 extended over the infill of building 2 in Mellaart level VIII.
The base of the south wall 406 has been reached and it is clear that it cut into the south wall to space 117 wall 79 at the west corner but not to the base of wall 79. The base of wall 406 does however coincide with the construction of oven 268. We wont know why this construction took place until we excavate the wall and it may well be associated with space 115 only, partially cut into wall 79 for additional support. Wall 406 appears to be constructed over dense brick rubble, possibly a foundation packing similar to the construction of wall 56 from Mellaart level VII. However no cut has been found and at the moment the wall appears to sit on this plinth of consolidation with the ‘dumps’ of infill abutting.
Today (18th April) Jez found a large horn core which Sheelagh says is officially the largest found. I wondered whether it was the other one to one found in ’96 by Roddy in space 117, as the sequence of deposition could be contemporary but Sheelagh is sorry to say it’s not.
I think I’ll continue more tomorrow.Entered By: Shahina Farid |
