Supervisor at Kinet Höyük

5:30… dawn… a morning breeze and a school garden… people try to wake up while holding coffee cups, and there was a morning rush, which I have dealt with over the past 6 years… This was the morning that I first met with the Kinet Höyük excavation team, in summer 1997. 

(photo: M-H Gates)

This was my last day of believing that archaeologists are romantic people searching for myths and legends of ancient people by digging in the old settlement remains, called tells and höyüks. This was the first day that I understood that being in the field is the most exciting, challenging and of course hardest part of being an archaeologist.

Being a supervisor at Kinet Höyük, being a member of an excavation team, and learning what real archaeologists do in the field. This was the most exciting period that an archaeology student can experience in his/her undergraduate life. Like every action in the field, this requires a kind of self-discipline and adaptation to teamwork. It requires the awareness of the heritage that you are standing on, recovering, and in fact destroying every day. It requires the awareness and seriousness of reconstructing the ancient cultures.

Every morning, waking up at 4:30, packing your tools while planning your fieldwork with one more coffee in your mind after the first one with your breakfast, getting prepared for the morning conversation with your field director… walking to the mound still with a coffee in your mind… the trench in the morning, smelling the morning breeze with your whole body, there are a couple of minutes more while smoking  before the daily routine, looking into the dawn, looking into your trench, looking back seeing the darkness disappear to the west, the morning peace interrupted by your workmen: “Günaydın Patron!!!”.

Communicating with the local workmen, communicating with the other team members, communicating with your field director, communicating with your assistants, communicating with the pottery that you excavated from your working area, communicating with the walls excavated, communicating with your brain while touching the ancient lives, communicating with the picks and shovels, communicating with the sun, communicating with your notebook, communicating with your drawings, and communicating with the sweat that drips from your forehead… For me, being a site supervisor at Kinet Höyük is a vast communication, which is the most pleasurable time of my life…

(photo: M-R Carre)

Newsletter No. 1 - 2002, Pg. 10


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