| Entry: | This first diary entry sums up mine and Mateusz Dembowiak's first two weeks at Catalhöyük. I have kept a field diary in my notebook, but have not had time to enter anything into the database until now.
June 26th-July 30th
Mainly introduction days. We were shown the site and some parts of the documentation system. Arne, Björn and I spent almost two days to find and check the fix points that the previous total station team had established, to set new fix points where it was needed and to construct a working prism rod as the only available rod was of a different brand than the rest of the station and mechanically incompatible with the prism and the hand unit. Then we all proceeded to removing the backfill of Building 30, which was excavated some years ago, and to helping Arek's team to clean their excavation area.
July 1st-July 4th
Our little pod, consisting of the Polish second year student Mateusz and me, started out trying to establish the stratigraphic relations of Feature 2533, the northern wall of Building 80. The wall was unstable and had to be taken down before the conservators could go through the plaster layers on its lower part, which perhaps is painted. Half way through, this project was abandoned in order to speed up the process and remove the plaster on and plan the southern façade. Finally Gunhild, the building archaeology expert, was assigned the wall task instead and our pod was removed to Space 39/40 in the north shelter.
July 5th-July 8th
Cleaned and planned the surface of Spaces 39 and 40. Excavated units 20200 (black fill in the northern part of Space 40) and 20201 (the cut filled with 20200). It was difficult to interpret those contexts, as they did not have any clear connection to the house and were the only younger units visible except from a grave cluster in layer 20203 nearby. Started working on the grave cluster, partially exposing skeleton 19472. 20200, 20201 and 20203 cut the infill in Space 40 (20202), but this far we have not found any physical or stratigraphical relations between 20200/20201 and 20203. The grave cluster seems to consist of one child, five to seven years old, and one person whose vertebrae epiphyses were just fused. Four vertebrae of the adult are still articulated and close by are three beads in a line. One leg and foot of the child remaines in situ, but many elements of both individuals are spread and fractioned. Mateusz has continued excavating the grave, exposing more rather mixed elements, and was finally able to define its cut or perhaps one of its cuts (not yet numbered ). I have spent almost two entire days doing total station work, setting a huge amount of fix points for the newly arrived 3D modelling teams and the other pods. I also measured the units of Building 108, the outlines of which will be recorded with a total station instead of hand drawn, set up reflex targets for quicker total station setup and checked and corrected the total station fix points. Quite a few people have used the total station, changed prism and settings and put out new fix points during the past weeks and lately we have had slight deviations between measuring sessions. From now on we will only use the best prism with the right settings and corrected fix points. The deviations have ranged from five to thirty millimeters and the changes in the fix point coordinates are small, so hopefully this will not cause problems in the future.
During these two weeks I have also spent some of my spare time on making photo based 3D models of selected buildings and features, as a part of Nicolò dell'Untos three persons' digital archaeology team. The result this far is satisfying, with detailed models that are scaled and georeferenced; for my part five or so test models to try out our latest software configuration and then around ten models from three different excavation areas.
Finally I am afraid that at the moment, I do not have so much to say about the actual archaeological interpretations of Space 39 and 40, even though that should be the main aim of the field diary. I have only spent two days in Space 39/40, Mateusz four, and we have mainly dealt with the grave cluster at a slow pace. As Arne and I were made responsible of the total station measuring and Arne and Björn have needed help with the total station and their installing and trial of the Intrasis software, these two weeks have been busy. I have had a huge work load learning the documentation system, being a pod leader in first one and then another area, helping and educating people on total stationing and software, and trying to evaluate the methodology and documentation strategy.
Hopefully everything will settle a bit in the next days. I have to say that I am very lucky to be on a team with Mateusz, who is a splendid student and very easy to work with. It is also really nice to be able to experience so many completely different aspects of the site and the project. It is a very inspiring environment, with so different (and so nice!) people coming together and working hard with such a fantastic archaeological record. More archaeologically relevant diary entries are to come, hopefully… |
