little stones

The combination of black and white tiles remind me of the cobblestones of Lisbon...

volubilis

The remains of the ancient city of Volubilis lie scattered within the agricultural patches of land outside Meknès. Founded in the 3rd century BCE, it was once a Mauritanian capital before becoming Roman. Volubilis boasts some of the finest mosaics I have seen in situ, with many depicting scenes from mythology, animals, and abstract patterns.

it may not be indiana jones, but it's still awesome

There were so many things I wanted to be when I "grew up", and the memories of my life's adults trying to box up my imagination for practicality's sake are clear as day. I wanted to be an artist, a poet, a theatre actor, Sir Edmund Hillary, Jacques Cousteau, a trapezist, an historian, a microbiologist, an immunologist, a botanist, someone who worked in a cool café, a journalist, and Indiana Jones. Oh to be an archaeologist solving ancient mysteries, travelling around the world while fighting evil in a wide-brimmed fedora! Yes, this was the life I saw for myself until somewhere along the line I discovered that all I wanted to do was draw. Nevertheless, it's a thrill visiting working archaeological sites. I deeply admire the dusty, sunburnt scientists and students toiling away to put together pieces of our collective past, and I enjoy meeting the workmen with seemingly superhuman strength, who are often wells of knowledge on their site. I was lucky to have visited Göbeklitepe and Çatalhöyük last year, and to have met some lovely people working at both sites.

While I realise that the lives of archaeologists don't involve saving precious artifacts from Nazis, nor do they swing away from booby-trapped boulders on a whip, many do wear fedoras. Jens Notroff is one of the lucky archaeologists working on Göbeklitepe who wears such a hat, and has written a great post on his blog which describes an average day in the field. It's not Hollywood-glamorous, but it's still pretty awesome from my perspective.



When I visited the working site of the Roman terrace houses in Ephesus, there was plenty of evidence of how painstaking the work of reassembling ancient structures is— there were so many fragments of walls, columns, painted plaster, mosaics, and whatnot. The ultimate puzzle.



And look at what all their hard work gives us:



We can see that even the Romans knew that everything is better with a pigeon.

worn stone

the ruins of arsemia

the giant heads of nemrut

I had first heard of Mount Nemrut when a former colleague of mine returned from a trip to the East with tales of giant heads atop a snow-covered mountain. Something between the curvy-lipped Olmec heads and the stern brows of the Rapa Nui statues crossed my mind, even though the homes of both cultures were on the other side of the world. I eventually looked up Mount Nemrut on the internet to discover that my imagination was way off.

We were lucky to have found a room at the lovely Kervansaray Hotel ( I say lucky because the following day the hotel was full— and the staff were so very nice), and after a snack and a brief nap, we headed up Mount Nemrut to see these heads and watch the sun set. Even though you can drive up most of the way, you still have to climb a steep, heart-pounding staircase towards the top, and goodness, the view is spectacular!



We learned that the site is actually the mausoleum of Antiochus I, ruler of Commagene, a kingdom that was founded after the empire of Alexander the Great dissolved. This mound atop a small mountain is his great monument to himself; massive statues and reliefs place him among Herakles and Ancient Armenian, Greek, and Persian gods. What I found particularly interesting (and amusing), was how he had himself depicted mid-handshake with the gods in the reliefs. Clearly, Antiochus I wanted everyone to know that he was a well-connected guy.



In the background of the above photo, you can see what remains of the bodies. There are five statues, once standing about 6–9 metres each, which represent Antiochus among the deities, flanked by a lion and an eagle. The heads have fallen down and placed upright, their faces cracked from centuries of harsh weather.

The handful of tourists didn't take away from the quiet and sense of peace at the site, even though I occasionally heard a string of adventure-bragging in an American accent coming from a rocky platform at the other end of where I was sketching. The sun slowly slipped behind the hills, and the light went from a warm orange to a cool violet.

çatalhöyük

Sometimes I wonder what my life would have been like if I had gone down the art history and archaeology path; digging up ancient figurines in Middle Eastern dust, sketching and writing about my findings while wearing a wide-brimmed hat. I have always had a keen interest in history— from our Paleolithic ancestors to the New England whaling industry of the 1800s. Turkey is built upon so many layers of history, that I feel lucky to be living in a place where I can explore Neolithic settlements, Greek temples, Roman temples, Byzantine basilicas, Seljuk tombs, and so on. The depth of time can overwhelm, and I find myself getting lost in circles of thought, wondering about peoples who lived and loved and fought and died.

Knowing that the Çatalhöyük archaeological site was so close to Konya, we made a special detour on our way to Akseki to see what there was to see. I had heard that the site was not much to look at, but I couldn't resist and had to find out for myself. The sun was mean, and as we pulled into the graveled parking lot, I felt the back of my skirt stick to my legs with sweat when I shifted in my seat.



We were met by a friendly face who introduced himself as Tunç. Tunç was volunteering at the site as a guide, offering his knowledge of the excavations and the region's history to curious visitors. He led us up the dry hill to the first dig site, which was buzzing with activity. Archaeologists and their students from Turkey, the US, Spain, Italy, and Poland were busy scraping, brushing, and measuring in the yellowed dirt. Ancient walls formed the remnants of homes made of mud brick, which were then plastered smooth— in some places it was possible to see the intricate designs that had been painted on the plaster in red ochre.



Çatalhöyük is the oldest human settlement of this size found so far— at its height, there were an estimated 8000 people living here. There appears to have been no system of government, and no organised religion, according to Tunç. People buried their loved ones beneath the ground of their homes, in small graves like the ones pictured above— you can see a skeleton in a fetal position being excavated in the upper grave. When there was no more room beneath the floor, or when a house needed to be renewed, it was demolished, and a replica was built directly on top of the site of the old house. This created a layered effect, and made the mound that is visible today.

Though the heat had begun to soak through my shirt as well, there was some shade available from the shelter built above the excavations, and we couldn't resist taking the opportunity to sit on a ledge and sketch the scene below. The archaeologists were very welcoming, and I met two fellow Californians amongst the teams whose enthusiasm reminded me of my old home, which felt like it had existed in a dream. Soon, they trickled out of their work spaces for a lunch break, and though we encouraged Tunç to join them, he decided to sit patiently with us. After a delightful conversation about the cinematic disaster that is known as the "Turkish Star Wars", we were joined by another curious visitor:



On a tangent, some of the voluptuous female figurines I showed you in the Ankara museum came from Çatalhöyük, and though I had referred to them earlier as goddesses, Tunç was adamant that the teams believe the ladies were talismans for protection and fertility, and not necessarily goddesses. He then told us about a group of contemporary Mother Goddess worshippers who visited the site some years ago to carry out a series of rituals. Though they were granted permission to do so, no one expected the nudity and dirt-eating that followed— and the reaction from the nearby villagers was nothing short of outrage!



When you scan the land near Çatalhöyük, several more mounds are visible which almost certainly contain a significant piece of our collective history. In fact, Pedro and I have begun to notice that throughout the Anatolian portion of Upper Mesopotamia, there are so many suspicious mounds that happen to be located near a water source and village, that we've made a game of spotting them. Can you imagine what else might be hiding under the earth?