Random things

I’m coming upon the half-way mark for my time in Turkey; in one respect it seems like time is going by so quickly (I mean, I’m almost half-way done already?!?!), but then it also feels like I’ve been here for so long. I guess it feels like a long time because we finally have a nice rhythm going on – get up early, go to the site, go to town, come back and swim in the pool . . . maybe do some laundry in the sink (a little rustic, but really not bad).

The word that I was probably trying to think of when I was mentioning how we visited the Jardarma and governor was “courtesy.” I don’t know if I just haven’t been in the right situation to do something like that, but I don’t see that often in the United States. Even though it may have had an air of formality, it was a bit more informal than I expected and extremely friendly.

The other day I witnessed a procession for a circumcision. When a boy is about eight years old, he gets circumcised as a right of passage. They dress the boy up like a sultan and parade him around town, usually with a convoy of cars. It seems a little odd, but many cultures/religions have their own rights of passage – bar/batz mitzvahs, communion, confirmation; it’s just that a circumcision sounds so painful when compared to the others.

One thing that I find annoying is that they don’t recycle here. With it being so hot here, our group throws away so many water bottles. I’ve gotten used to just drinking the tap water with no ill effects (luckily). One good thing is that our hotel uses solar power to heat the water -- a plus alongside the negative.

We are getting a good amount of work done in the field. The Clarkies are busy drafting the blocks and getting ready for the crane that's coming tomorrow (exciting!). The Nebraska students have been surveying the area. Here are some photos from the field that were taken by Julia McKinely:
Here are a couple of students and a professor from the University of Nebraska using a GPR to analysis the ground. They actually saw that they was a change in material at two points that were about six feet long. The students have been digging the last couple of days. We were jokingly hoping for 6ft gold statues. It looks like they might just be large stones.













Here is me, Lily and Natch working on measuring and drafting all the faces of the block. My hat is a little out of place; it looks like I'm about to go out to the Hamptons. Lily looks like she's on a safari. Julia looks like she's a Southern Bell. Julia is from North Carolina and I'm from Long Island -- it sort of works. But Lily is from Staten Island; I don't think that fits with the safari theme.

Alanya, working in the field, and the Jarndarma

We spent the day in Alanya on Friday to get our ikamets. The polis (police) said that they could have them ready by the end of the day, so we were there for a while. Alanya is a little bit of a touristy spot. It’s more of a vacation area for Europeans than Gazipaşa even though both are on the hot Mediterranean coast with beautiful beaches. We met with the governor of Gazipaşa today. He mentioned that a large part of the economy here is agricultural, they are moving towards making Gazipaşa a tourist area. Interestingly, Gazipaşa was originally named Selinti (after Selinus, the ancient city we hiked up last week). It was Ataturk who changed the name/gave it the nickname Gazipaşa (Holy Warrior).

Since we were able to get our ikamets on Friday, we started work in the field starting on Saturday (yay!!). As I mentioned previously, it gets very hot here during the day, so we try to head out to the site around 6AM to get there around 6:30. Saturday we had a lot of “cleaning” to do; we had to remove the brush that had grown over the mound where the ruins lie. The group of us Clark students have started to work on drafting the blocks. Last season they were only able to work for a week, so they moved a lot of blocks to the block field but haven't drawn most of them. This season we need to catch up on drafting those blocks completely and also work on those blocks that have not been moved yet. After our first day of work, we stopped by the Jandarma which is a branch of the Turkish Armed Forces who maintain order in areas outside the jurisdiction of the polis. News spreads very quickly here. Since this area is highly populated by just Turkish people, a group of Americans fiddling around on an ancient site draws some suspicion. Therefore, we went to introduce ourselves to the Jandarma.

The imam, the man in charge of the mosque, also has the keys to the schoolhouse near our site. Since school is out, he let's us store things in the school. His wife brought out bread, tomatoes, olives and çay (tea) for a mid-morning snack and then brought some delicious fruit for us later on. When we had visited the Jardarma and the governor, they had both served us drinks. It is a very friendly atmosphere here. They are finishing an airport here that should open in October, so Gazipaşa would be more easily accessible that you might consider visiting. If you think about visiting, there is a British man that runs the Green Oasis that is very kind and is a good contact in an area where not too many people know English.

Hot, hot, hot . . .

If you couldn't tell, it's pretty hot here. Normal temperatures are over 100 F. We went hiking last night to Selinus, which is right on the coast. The top drops off to the Mediterranean Sea. This morning we went hiking up Kestros, which wasn't much tougher just a lot hotter and A LOT of thorns. Some of the people in our group were wearing shorts and their legs were a little torn up and bleeding. The only problem I really had was the heat. We left the hotel around 9:20 and it was only a 5 minute drive to the site. Once we reached the summit, we walked around to the different buildings that Prof. Townsend and Hoff had mapped in the past. Interestingly, we saw a couple of Doric column drums in these Ancient Roman sites.

We have to wait until Friday to go get our ikamets (residency permits) -- that's when our representation gets here. Once she is here, we'll know when we'll be able to start working in the field.

By the way, the food here is amazing. The fresh fruits and vegetables are delicious. I have yet to try the drink ayran, which is basically watered-down plain yogurt with salt. Personally, it sounds terrible, but it's a very popular drink in Turkey. I think I should at least try it while I'm here.

Gazipasha

Our last day in Istanbul, a few of us crossed the Bosporus to the Asian side; it was a lot less touristy.  We ended up taking a nice walk along the shore; interestingly, but not surprising, there were only men taking a dip in the water. 

After a very, very long bus ride, we finally arrived in Gazipasha (located SE of Alanya) this afternoon.  We drove up to the site to have a look; at the moment, it’s basically just a pile of blocks.  There are some blocks in the block field (blocks that have been removed from the pile, some/most of which have been drawn already) and other fragments have been lined up.  We don’t start work in the field for a little while because we need to get of residency permits (and we need to wait for our representative to the Archaeological Society before we can do that).  There is a lot of paper-pushing involved in doing research over here.  But after that, we’ll first need to remove the brush that has grown on the mound in the past year. 

Professor Townsend and his colleague have taken students up to this area in recent years to map out other ancient structures.  His colleague mentioned that as this area of Turkey develops more and more over the years, these areas that they have mapped out are being or most likely will be destroyed in the coming years.  Many, if not all the structures are not completely intact, so by destroyed I mean taken apart/removed.  There are many ways to think about this: 1. they can’t keep living in the past if they want to keep up with the development in the rest of the world (I, personally, don’t really think that); 2. there is still so much we can learn from these sites; 3. if it’s not functional, is it worth keeping around?; 4. once we learn everything we can, is it okay to destroy the evidence? 

From an American’s point-of-view, seeing that we don’t really have ancient structures to speak of, I find these ancient structures in Turkey (and elsewhere) to be a vital part of history.  The culture and history that can be found in every nook and cranny is very intriguing. For me, I’d hate to see all these places destroyed.

86 carats!

We spent the morning at Topkapı Palace, which is an old sultan palace from the Ottoman Empire here in Istanbul. It was first constructed in 1459 after the fall of Constantinople and was in use until the 1920's. The Imperial Treasury just boggles the mind. There was a diamond that was 86 carats and if that wasn't impressive enough, it was surrounded by 49 more diamonds (which were smaller of course). It could have probably been the size of my palm. There were diamonds, rubies, and gold on so many different things.... on the outside and INSIDE of a bowl. There were brooches that were larger than my hand. Even the circumcision room was impressive with its elaborate tiles.

Later today, we'll be leaving Turkey and making our way down to Alanya and Gazipaşa by bus -- a 14 hour bus ride. Hopefully I'll get some sleep but also see inland Turkey by moonlight.

"Hello Spice Girls"

7/12/08

We spent the day as tourists of course. The whole group of us (2 professors and 10 students) visited the Blue Mosque, the Hippodrome and Hagia Sophia this morning. Lily, Julia and I actually discovered that if we stood on the chairs on the terrace at the top of our building we can see the Blue Mosque. This was the mosque we tried to visit yesterday. It’s absolutely gorgeous inside; it is known as the Blue Mosque for the blue tiles that adorn the interior. When approaching the mosque, the many domes appear to ripple upwards.

The Hippodrome was the place of horse/chariot racing. The actual racing ring is now used as a street. The center was turned into a city park. Two obelisks are located within, one of which is actually Egyptian and brought to the site by Emperor Theodosius. The spiral bronze sculpture is actually part of a three-headed serpent piece; it is what’s left of the Greek’s Tripod of Plataea, which celebrated the Greek victory over the Persians in the Persian War.

Hagia Sophia was what I was most interested in seeing. I was only disappointed in the fact that there was scaffolding in the center which prevented a full view of the central dome. Hagia Sophia was an early Byzantine church, but was turned into a mosque in 1453. It is now a museum and you can find elements of both the church and the mosque. The amount of detail in the mosaics left from the Byzantine church was amazing. Many of the mosaics were covered up by plaster during a period of iconoclasm. In turning it into a mosque all the crosses had be removed from the walls (some have left impressions in the marble).

After taking a siesta in the afternoon, we went to the Grand Bazaar. Bargaining for goods seems to be a real art. Many of the shopkeepers kept calling us the Spice Girls, not sure how I should take that.

We made it!

Lily, Julia, and I were the first to arrive. Since we weren’t expecting anyone else from our group to arrive for at least a few more hours, we showered up and walked around a bit. We stopped at a mosque but weren’t able to get in because it was prayer time. We also saw Hagia Sofia, but didn’t go in because we’ll probably be doing that as a group tomorrow.

We went through a bazaar which was bizarre in how it reminded me of Canal Street in NYC; the shop owners stood at their doors or sat outside with a selection of their goods and tried to usher us into their shops. (Some of the smells also reminded me of NYC). Çay, or tea, is a very common drink in Turkey and they drink it out of transparent, tulip-shaped glasses. Many of the shops sell these glasses. I’m planning on picking up a few on my way back to the States (don’t want them to break in the next month that’ll be here).

Something that we’ve noticed is that men and women don’t come into much physical contact. I’ve seen more same-sex couples holding hands/linking arms than opposite –sex couples.

And she's off...

Thanks to my friend, Pammy, a Clark alum who now lives in Boston, my commute to Logan airport was much less stressful. I ended up staying the night at her place the night before my flight and used the T to get to the airport. At the moment, I’m sitting at my terminal anxiously awaiting my impending cultural shock. (posting this later because I don’t want to pay the $8 for Logan’s wireless).

I sat next to this really nice Turkish man on my flight from JFK to Turkey. We started talking about why I was going to Turkey and places I should visit . . . he even helped me with my Turkish. So far, in my mind, Turkish people are very nice/helpful.

Merhaba (hello)!

Welcome to Tofurkey. I'm heading off to Turkey in less than a week and I'm so excited. We're going to be flying into Istanbul and staying there for a couple of nights. There are a few places I know I would like to see. We'll then take an overnight bus ride to Gazipasa, where we'll spend the remainder of our trip. I think this will be one of the most interesting things I'll ever do. I mean, working on the site of an Ancient Roman temple, how many times do you come across that?

To prepare myself for my trip I met up with a Turkish graduate student about a week and a half ago to learn some Turkish. Although this is my first time abroad, I feel that if you're going to a foreign country, the natives will be more inclined to help you if you at least try to communicate in their language. Considering that it'll be blazing hot out when I'm in Turkey, one of the most useful things I learned to say is "su istiyorum" which means I want water. [tangent: Going to a small school there are always odd connections and things just fall into place. In this case, my chemistry research advisor (Professor Turnbull) was playing volleyball and a student in the physics group we work with is dating a Turkish girl who he happened to bring along one day. A light-bulb went off in my advisor brain and he introduced us].

Some other useful words: evet (yes), hayir (no), lütfen (please), and teşekkur ederim (thank you).

This past week I was up in Vermont for the Northeastern Regional Meeting of the American Chemical Society (NERM). They set aside one afternoon for tours of the area and meeting/mingling. Professor Turnbull, Dave (another student in the lab), and I went down to Proctor, Vermont. Some of you might not know this, but there is a Marble Museum there. [There's also a Maple Museum nearby for those of you with a sweet tooth]. Seeing as how I'll hopefully be doing chemical analysis on marble, we ventured in that direction. It's interesting how many places calcium carbonate (the main component of marble) shows up: paper, toothpaste, plastic to name a few. I was able to pick up some marble samples to practice on. We also took a nice little walk over to the old marble quarry.

Allaha ısmarladık (goodbye)

P.S. The undotted 'i' is pronounce like "uh." I find that to be the hardest to get used to.