Meet Jeff

My name is Jeff Herrick and in the fall I will begin my second year studying Roman history in the MA/Ph.D. program in Ancient History at Penn State. I received a B.A. in History, with a minor in Classical Studies, from the University of Colorado. As an undergrad, I was wowed by the stories some of my professors told about their archaeological work in Turkey, and I have since grown more and more fascinated with the history and archaeology of Anatolia. This is my first time participating in an archaeologically expedition, and I jumped at the chance to participate in the Mopsos Landscape Archaeology Project, both for my own interest in the region, and because the Mopsos project, as an archaeological field school, is an excellent opportunity for me to both gain a firsthand understanding of archaeological theory and methodology.

The focus of the Project accords well with my specific research interests, as well, since I am focusing on the adoption of Roman culture in the Eastern provinces, and Turkey has not disappointed. Each day we find a great deal of ancient ceramic sherds: roof tiles, fragments of amphorae and pithoi (shipping and storage jars), fine wares, much of it from the Roman period, simply lying exposed on the ground, even in the locals’ backyards! It is stunning to realize that this material has simply been lying here for millenia, waiting to be picked up. When the data from this expedition is interpreted and presented in a coherent framework, it may tell us a great deal about the spread of Roman cultural practices, and the consumption of luxuries such as Italian wine. Even beyond the Roman material, today I found a sherd of pottery with a painted geometric design indicating that it probably dates to the Iron Age. Turkey is amazing.

Meet Andrea

Hello everyone. My name is Andrea and I am one of the novice members of this years Mopsos team. I just finished my second year at Penn State, completing my M.A. work right before leaving for this survey. My interests are Roman social history, particularly in the late Republic and Augustan period, and I am hoping to focus on Anatolia (Turkey) in my research, though which region precisely is still up for debate. That is a big reason why I am here this summer – to get an understanding of Anatolia, its geography, its culture, its environment, everything. It has been great over the last 10 days or so to see this area that I have read so much about and understand where the authors were coming from. My other main reason for participating in this survey of the Cilician plain is so that I may gain a better understanding of archaeology – how it works, how to interpret it, how I can use it – for my own research. I am primarily a historian and have very little archaeological background, but I fully recognize the important role that archaeology has in the understanding of ancient history. While there are some questions better answered by texts, other questions are more easily answered through the archaeological record, and I want to be able to access both sides of that historical coin. Before coming here my only archaeological experience was excavating for a week at Crow Canyon Archaeological Center near Cortez, CO, so this is my first field survey and my first archaeological work in the Mediterranean. I will try to keep you all posted on my experiences here as a first-time surveyor. For now, I will tell you that I am gradually gaining a better eye for the types of pottery pieces that we want to collect for analysis (rims, handles, bases, painted sherds, etc.). So far my most exciting finds have been several pieces of mosaic, a piece of an oil lamp, a glass base, and the survey’s first coin (never mind that it dates to 1964...). I will update you again in a few days, hopefully as a more experienced and knowledgeable surveyor.

Field Trip Day: Zincirli, Karatepe, Anazarbus and Hierapolis-Kastabala

We left base camp this morning at 6:30 am for Zincirli, Karatepe, Anazarbus, and Kastabala and returned at 9:15 pm. Needless to say it was a long day but well worth it. Our first stop was Zincirli, a Late Bronze Age and Neolithic site in upper Cilicia. The Chicago team heading up excavations do not arrive until July 15th so there was little to see at the site.

The next stop on our journey was the late eight through ninth-century Hittite site of Karatepe. The orthostat reliefs were amazing as they depicted various motifs such as the Tree of Life, religious scenes (see picture below), animals, soldiers, boats, and many others. Jeff Herrick and I crouched down in front of a large statue of Ba’al while Juan Tebes did his best Ba’al impression (see picture below).

The last two stops were particularly interesting for the Romanists. The site of Kastabala provided great entertainment. The site itself was breath taking. The remains of a Crusader/Armenian castle, a bath, a theater, a colonnade, and several archaeological features are well preserved. When Jeff Herrick, Thad Olson, Andrea Gatzke, and I explored the theater we entered an arched hallway. I entered first and was admiring the tumble at the back when all of a sudden I spooked a bat. It flew by me and I yelled “bat.” Jeff was right behind me and Thad was behind him. Funny enough Thad had his camera ready and took a picture. We have been laughing at Jeff’s expression for the better part of six hours. Luckily my back was turned and the camera did not preserve the look on my face.

The last stop was Anazarbus. It too preserved the remains of another Crusader/Armenian castle, a bath, churches, a theater, a colonnade, an aqueduct, a fortification wall, and much more. The highlight of the trip was the difficult hike to the castle. The view down to the Roman remains was my favorite. No matter what happens the rest of the season, my Turkey trip was worthwhile based on this one day of field trips. Below I have posted pictures of an orthostat from Karatepe, Juan’s best Ba’al impression, me on top of the Kastabala castle (it was really windy), Jeff’s priceless expression, the plain of Anazarbus with Roman material, and the Anazarbus castle.

Brandon Olson: Penn State University

My name is Brandon Olson and this is my first year with the Mopsos Survey. I am a PhD candidate at Penn State in the Classics and Ancient Mediterranean Studies program. I have been asked to oversee the operations of this blog for the 2008 season and I gladly obliged. Over the next few days other contributors will provide personal introductions where they will describe their academic interests and explain why they decided to come to Turkey this year. After the initial introductions I anticipate this blog serving, as it did last year, as a public medium where contributors can discuss issues such as the daily grind of an archaeological survey, interesting finds, personal experiences, learning experiences, and their overall interpretations and opinions of what they are doing and why. That said I would like to provide my introduction.

In 2003 I earned a Bachelor’s degree in anthropology/archaeology from Fort Lewis College in Durango, Colorado. In 2004 I earned a Master’s degree in European Historical Archaeology focusing on antiquity from the University of Sheffield in Sheffield, England. After completing the program I became interested in utilizing history within archaeology. I realized that in order to do this I required formal training in history. So in 2007 I earned a Master’s degree in history from the University of North Dakota in Grand Forks. Now I am at Penn State studying both the history and archaeology of the Roman Empire.

I decided to participate in the Mopsos Survey to, above all, enhance my archaeological training in the eastern Mediterranean. For the last three years I have worked in southern Cyprus with the Pyla Koutsopetria Archaeological Project (PKAP). Although I have worked with four other projects in the U.S. and Britain, PKAP really provided me with the fundamental archaeological training in a Mediterranean context. I hope to utilize this training while I am in Turkey. For each field season I try to set a few goals. Since this is my first year here I have yet to have a solid research design. Therefore my two goals for this season are simple. I hope to become proficient enough in GIS (ArcGIS) to make basic maps essential for my research and become more familiar with Roman pottery forms to better prepare me for working with the material next year.

The goal of this blog now is to provide posts daily but long days, internet issues, and fatigue may cause periodic lapses. I do maintain a personal blog, which I will on occasion double publish with this one. All the material, however, will be Mopsos Survey specific. Any comments or suggestions are always welcome.

Brandon Olson

The 2008 Season Begins

We are back in Guzelyalya for a second summer with some familiar and some new faces. Unfortunately, Jeff Rop decided that he could find more productive ways to become a textually oriented Classical historian than tramp through fennel-choked fields. Nevertheless, Amanda and I have returned to Hatay with our knowledge of Turkish more or less intact and our lust for bags full of ancient pottery unsated.

We hope that the posts on Real-Time Archaeology this year will be more informative and more timely. I feel confident in promising an upgrade in content delivery because we are appointing a new blog master, Brandon Olsen, a fellow Mopsos Expedition surveyor who is also a legitimate blogging pro. I will let him tell you about himself later, once Amanda and I can figure out how to get him access.

Interesting Finds Part I

This season, more than fifteen new sites were discovered in the Cilician plain. Most of these probably consisted of small farmsteads, manifested archaeologically by a dense concentration of ceramic wares distributed across the modern landscape in relatively limited surface areas. Once in a while, however, we stumbled upon significantly larger sites with seemingly more functional attributes. One of these was designated Site 161. This site was located on a hill slope and covered an area of ca. two and a half hectares. The first sign of the site came when we began stumbling upon an increasing amount of pottery sherds. Recently planted olive trees had caused the earth to be disturbed and a plethora of artifacts to rise to the surface. While a number of us were getting excited about the vast amounts of handles and bases that we were finding, Dr. Killebrew stumbled upon a number of large ashlar blocks a little further down the hill. The following picture shows a few of us standing on the remains of these monumental building blocks.


Further down the hill, we discovered the remains of another monumental building. In the picture below, you can discern two perpendicular walls, probably forming the corner of a room. Nearby villagers had directed us toward this area. They claimed that there used to be a Church in this area and that they had often stumbled upon mosaic fragments.

Although we found no mosaics, we stumbled upon three large chamber tombs cut into the natural bedrock. In the picture below you can see Pete crawling into one of these.

The next picture is a great shot of Rachel, crawling into the tomb head first.

As you can tell, this was no easy feat, but we were all too excited to turn down the challenge. Each tomb was constructed in a similar way. Three niches were carved into the bedrock inside the tomb: one on each side and one at the back. The following three pictures feature these little chambers:

From left to right: Dan, Pete, Rachel and Kathleen. Nothing like spending some quality time amongst friends in an ancient tomb...

...or perhaps a romantic evening... (Dan and Amanda)

Of course, creepy crawlies are a given in this kind of environment. Witness the horror/amusement at the sight of a VERY large and multicolored spider.

Our investigations however, were not all fun and games. Most of these tombs had probably been looted and very few artifacts were found within them. In one of the tombs we came across a number of bones.
In the picture below, Rachel is holding a skull fragment in her right hand and a vertebrae fragment in her left.
Our dear Müge, the only one who could stand upright in one of our largest tombs:

In addition to these finds, several other features were encountered, including a wine press, a possible ashlar quarry, two column shafts, and a column base. Most of the pottery collected from the site seems to date from the Hellenistic and Byzantine periods. This site may have consisted of a religious complex, including a Church, an administrative building, and agricultural dependencies. In my next post, I will share our discovery of an ancient canal system associated with the ancient site of Alexandretta, founded by Alexander the Great in the fourth century BCE.

Cheers!

Amanda*

Termessos

I wish I could tell you guys how many days ago we were in Antalya, but our trek from Hatay to Istanbul has been one gigantic whirlwind. I can recall that on our first full day in Antalya, we hired a driver to take us out to the ancient site of Termessos, of which Wikipedia provides a good summary.

Termessos is located about 30 kilometers north of Antalya in the midst of the Taurus Mountains. The site has not been systematically excavated, so the date of its earliest settlement is unclear. However, Termessos first entered the historical record in the 4th century BCE as it defied Alexander the Great, and was occuppied until its abandonment in the 5th century CE.

The picture below shows a view from the site.

We had heard that Termessos was spectacular, but there is no way to be prepared. On the trail from the parking lot to the site proper, I stopped to take a picture of this wall which was one of the oldest, most intact in situ wall I had ever seen.

Little did I know what else lay in store. The majority of this post is simply pictures of amazingly preserved structures that have survived for nearly 1500 years.

I have also included several pictures with members of our group to show the scale of some of these remains. Especially in North American archaeology, we are lucky to find the remains of post holes, and here, there are walls still several meters high.

The following pictures are from the gymnasium/bath complex of the city.

Termessos is famous for having a theater with one of the Classical world's best views. I guess I got a little carried away with it myself and forgot to get a good overall picture of the theater. However, the first picture below was taken from the back row towards the stage, with the enormous mountain towering in the background.

Another advantage Termessos has over a site like Ephesusm which is probably as equally well preserved, is that visitors can go anywhere they feel capable of. This is Amanda and Jeff sitting on the top of the wall at the back of the stage.

The scale in this next picture is difficult to discern, but this is a big passageway which runs under the theater seats to the stage.

By this time in our hike, our mistake in neglecting to bring along water started catching up with us. Fortunately, we had already seen some of the most spectacular ruins on the mountain. However, the path down to the parking lot took us through the necropolis. There were several plain sarcophagi which were passed up in exchange for quicker hydration. However, there were a few more elaborate tombs cut into the rock as pictured below.

That brings us to the end of Termessos. I think I speak for at least Jeff, Amanda, and myself in designating Termessos the most impressive site we have seen on this trip so far.