| Entry: | A new week starts after a day off. The South area is getting more interesting every day with new spaces, and new features. Today’s work concentrated on four units, U11863, U12425, U12426 and U12423. The burnt fill in the space which contains bins and the unit in the NE of it are removed. These units seem to become two spaces, as new bench with a nice plaster is found in the NE unit. The priority tour, much larger group of specialists visited us today, and new developments explained to them. Later on, Shahina also brought 3 new members who came yesterday. One of them was an archaeologist from the University of Redding, where Wendy is now working, and we all asked about her. His specialty was burnt plaster and as our area has been heavily burnt, he visited us later and checked the burnt areas more closely.
More local people were visiting Çatal today, as it is Saturday; however none visited us today somehow. One of the groups that I saw while they were entering the Mellaart’s house was very interesting. It was an extended family or two, with several women and young children, men’s were in front, and at least three women were carrying babies. I am fascinated the number of Turkish and foreign peoples who comes to visit Çatal in just a few days. The visitors allowed visiting the site in guidance of guards, and the guards told me that during the weekends three of them are constantly busy.
In the afternoon Nurcan Yalman invited everyone to show a reference collection according to levels, which was selected from 2 or 3 bags from each level. Mihriban’s wish partly comes true. This availability of such reference collections seems very helpful for the excavators to recognize the changes or intrusions especially in pottery or stone while digging.
During the dinner, Shahina announced that the Çatal team is going to have a new collaboration with Selçuk University, Konya, and the specialists need to make some presentations to them. She said that the ones who interested to see the University and hear their presentations can attend this tour in Tuesday. Gülay also said goodbye to everyone after Shahina, as she has finished her summer school for this year. Gülay and Nuray depart after the dinner; they will take train from Çumra. At night we have checked Mellaart’s publications with Mihriban, and looked his plans for layer 5 and 6, found similar benches, and pillars.Entered By: Fusun Ertug |
