Working in a Tomb

We've been working off and on in the Midas tomb. We're cleaning and helping in the monitoring of the environment. This involves lots of shimmying on ladders and scaffolding, and reminds me of my childhood spelunking adventures more than anything else.

   

The roof of the tomb.

A tethered vacuum, suspended from a bar in case it falls from the scaffolding.

Richard surveys the roof of the tomb.

This is me cleaning a 2700-year-old log. I find that to be a lot of pressure.

Also, it was brought to my attention by a friend that this blog is currently failing to focus on the city of Los Angeles. I hope unsuspecting visitors are not disappointed by the false advertising. I might change the title picture, if I have time before cocktail hour.

Trip to Safronbolu

For our day off we took a trip to Safronbolu, a UNESCO world heritage town just a few hours north of Ankara. The town is known for its preserved Ottoman houses, and is incredibly charming. We stayed the night, toured around, and then headed back to Gordion the next day. The town is a large draw for Turkish tourists, but doesn't seem to get many foreign visitors. It was interesting to travel around in a place where people really don't speak English. Luckily, one of my travel companions speaks very good Turkish, and could help us navigate. I'm working on my Turkish, and improving a bit, but have really only mastered greetings and fruits. 

A view of the town.

The local mosque.

Old tools outside of a museum we visited.

They gave us blue booties to put over our shoes when we toured one of the Ottoman houses. I think they would be handy to keep my shoes nice in a many situations.

A vendor. Thats about all I have to say about this photo.

I should have bought one of those fancy tea-sets.

This is where we ate dinner. 

I have ingested more tea and coffee than any person should.

We have a chef who cooks for us. And a very regimented, yet not so rigorous daily schedule. Never in my life have I been fed so frequently, and so well. 

Breakfast, 5:00 AM

A standard Turkish breakfast of eggs, bread, cheese, vegetables, assorted spreads, and tea. This slightly blurry picture is the best I've done at 5 AM so far. 

Second Breakfast, 9:00 AM

Cheese and tomato sandwiches on this delicious fluffy pita bread, cookies, and tea. Having second breakfast every day makes me feel slightly like a hobbit. 

Lunch, 1:00 PM

A rotating schedule of dishes I can't identify, yogurt, and tomato salad. Along with Turkish coffee, and tea. Followed by nap time.

  

Tea Time, 3:30 PM

Tea. 

Cocktail Hour, 7:00 PM

Cocktails. No, tea. 

 

Dinner, 8:00 PM 

Another round of dishes that are delicious and that I don't know the name of, yogurt, tomato salad and Turkish coffee.

And then, bed. If only every dig went on this schedule. Or every job, for that matter.

The Dig House

This is where I'm staying while at Gordion. Its absolutely lovely. 

The dig house compound. 

Self-explanatory. 

The driveway and outer buildings, where we have labs and storage.

The front balcony.

My room.

After many years apart...we meet again, squatting toilet.

The back balcony. 

The view of the village.

Yassıhöyük

Some shots of the town where we're staying, Yassıhöyük. 

This is the local minaret, from which they issue the call to prayer five times a day. The first call is just before 4 in the morning, which thoroughly confused me the first time I heard it. I was awake for the early call to prayer for the first 4 or 5 mornings after I got here, until at long last I got over my jet lag. Now I'm happy to say I only hear 4 out of 5 calls to prayer in any given day. 

Typical construction in the village.

The Gordion cafe, next to the museum. They have delicious dondurma (ice cream) and gozleme (fried pastry filled with cheese).

This is the local flock of sheep, and the donkey who leads them.  

Every day, this flock of sheep goes back and forth across the fields, with the donkey in front and the shepherd following behind. What I haven't figured out is if the donkey knows where hes going, or if the shepherd is content to have the donkey wander wherever he sees fit. 

The Midas Tomb

Surrounding the town of Gordion (and the citadel I showed in the last post), are more than a hundred tumuli - burial mounds built by the Phrygians during various periods. The largest and most famous of these is the Midas tomb. There is a large wooden structure that forms the tomb, over which was piled a thick layer of gravel, and then the mound was built over the entire thing. They originally thought it might be the tomb of King Midas, but dendrochronology (tree ring dating) has confirmed that it is slightly too old to be him, and might in fact be the tomb of Midas' father. Either way, its very impressive, in size, construction, and in the amazing array of artifacts they found inside. It took a team of Turkish miners hauling out material to get to the tomb itself, and a lot of engineering know-how to successfully excavate it without the entire thing collapsing.

   

This is the entrance to the mound, and follows the path cut into the mound for the mining cars when it was excavated. I don't think this picture really does justice to the scale of it, but I tried. 

The outside of the wooden tomb, with steel supports to hold the beams in place. Originally the gravel fill surrounding the beams would have kept them in place. Tourists aren't allowed into this area, but we got a special tour. We might even get to clean some of the tomb! 

Inside the tomb, with supports that keep the inner walls from cracking and collapsing.

A corner workspace just outside the tomb. 

These devices are attached to many of the beams, and monitor the movement of the wood as the logs expand and contract. In theory, if the tomb was in danger of imminent collapse, these would let them know.

Gordion

On Monday we ventured out of Ankara and into rural Turkey. I’m working at the site of Gordion, located in the town of Yassihöyük, just north of Polatli. It is only an hour from Ankara, and surrounded by rolling hills and countryside.  For those of you who don’t know much about Gordion (I’ll admit, I knew very little about Gordion before coming here) it is famous as the home of King Midas. Yes, that King Midas. He was a Phrygian king, who ruled in the 8th century BC, but the site was occupied as early as 2500 BC.  It was also where Alexander the Great cut the Gordion knot, among other things.  The site has been excavated since 1950, and is fantastically huge.  The official website is here.

I’m pretty thrilled to be out in the field again, and to be working at such a ridiculously important and extensively excavated site. They have amazing artifacts from 4000 years of occupation, which is something you don’t see very often. And they’ve has conservators working at the site for years, which is also great from my perspective. Its enough to get me interested in the archaeology of the region, which is something I wouldn't have seen coming a few years ago. 

Here are some photos of the site. 

I'll try to refrain from too many pictures of ruins from here on out, but I can't make any promises. 

Ankara

First stop was Ankara, where we stayed for the night before departing for Gordion. I met up with the other conservation intern, a student from Buffalo State, and my supervisor, who is currently living in Iraq. Here are a few photos I took as we went about town, gathering supplies. 

A building along Ataturk Boulevard.

The Museum of Anatolian Civilization, where much of the Gordion materials are housed.

A vendor, selling dried fruit and nuts.

The chemical store. You can find many weird chemicals readily for sale, which is good for conservators, but strange nonetheless.  

Liz leaves Los Angeles...

I have left LA for the summer, in order to travel to far-flung places for summer internships. I've resolved to update this blog more frequently, since I'll have more interesting pictures to show than the normal photos of me sitting in the lab. 

I finished up my schoolwork on Friday, and promptly flew out on Saturday. I got flights from LA to Montreal, from Montreal to Munich, and from Munich to Ankara. I was immediately reminded of how long its been since I went abroad (I am disregarding trips to British Canada in that statement, of course). There are a few things I immediately remembered/learned the moment I hopped on the plane.

(1) I love to travel. 

(2) I forgot how wonderful it can be to fly an airline that actually feeds you. Everyone should fly Lufthansa. They fed me constantly, and brought around drinks almost every hour. Drinks before dinner, drinks with dinner, after dinner wine, after dinner coffee, after dinner cognac, morning drinks, etc. And all for free. Wonderful. 

(3) Duty free shops are odd.

 

(4) Munich has a strange airport. There are cubes for smoking...

...and cubes for napping.

...and for some reason, an adult store. No one under 18 allowed!

That sums up my 20 hours of flying, as best I can in my jetlagged state. More to come soon.