Imagine…

Imagine a hazy, too warm, brooding September day in the south of Turkey. The air carries the smell of rain and a subtle threat of thunder. Outside the window the pines that were thrashing in the wind an hour ago are now only gently stirring.

In your palm rests a fragile clump of shaped earth, bearing the slightest traces of an ancient cylinder seal. Slanting the desk lamp to cast the impression into relief, trying to distinguish between the rough texture of the clay and slightly raised figures depicted there, you sigh with frustration. (Seriously: if you were about to make something that would last three thousand years wouldn’t you take the time to do it properly so that when it finally came out of the ground three millennia later someone might actually be able to appreciate your craftsmanship without squinting to the point of near blindness?) Angling the piece nearer to the light, trying not to damage the fragile, crumbly lump, your tenuous grip eases slightly and the clay falls to your angled drawing table, sliding to the floor, shattering…

NO. That didn’t happen. Imagine, I said, just imagine. 

This scenario plays and replays in my head throughout my workday as a myriad small finds pass through my hands: delicate bits of jewellery, tiny beads, intricately decorated figurines and amorphous lumps of unbaked clay printed – sometimes barely visibly so – with seal impressions. I worry about crushing or dropping or unintentionally losing something as I measure and examine and trace the contours. It hasn’t happened – yet. The fear does, however, keep me mindful and reverent of these small remnants of ancient daily life entrusted to me.

Beside my desk this afternoon rests a crate of miscellaneous objects to be drawn and –  aside from a few things that still need to be conserved or photographed – this will likely be the last of the season’s new drawings. We’re nearly at the end of digging. Tomorrow evening is our wrap-up party and many of the dig staff scatter for home on Sunday. Senior staff remain another two weeks – finalizing research, assembling data, composing reports, documenting finds – winding down. 

For now, back to the drawing board…and some quality time with this little fellow, who I am holding with a firm grip.

The Holy City

In July I watched the eclipse of a full moon from a kibbutz in Israel. In the dark of that same lunar phase, I watched the stars fall over the Arabian desert. This past weekend the Mediterranean Sea glistened under yet another full moon. The waning disc hanging in the early morning sky today seemed to be taunting me: time to write something!

I’m back on the dig at Zincirli in the south of Turkey where we’re nearly half-way through the 2018 season. After leaving Tell Keisan, I spent a few days in Jerusalem before flying to Jordan where I joined a G Adventures group tour, checking off a few items on the bucket list before heading here mid-August. It’s been a busy month.

Internet connection has been a challenge this summer. Or a convenient excuse. Add to that a busy dig schedule, an intense one week tour of a new country and the time needed to process the enormity of being in the Biblical landscape – and well, you have a pause in the reporting. I’ve opted for a quiet weekend to reflect and put together a few posts, hoping that without the usual crowd on the internet I may finally get my photos uploaded! 

Let’s start back in Jerusalem, shall we?

I found myself with mixed feelings during my time in Israel. Yes, I was in the epic land of the bible and all, but my limited time there was mostly in an urban setting. The shores of the Sea of Galilee were disappointingly littered and dirty, the landscape strewn with plastic scrap, the highways crowded – and weekend outings brought us within earshot of airstrikes across the border in Syria. All this made it difficult to impose the pastoral scenes of Sunday School stories on the sprawl of modern day and yet…

I had booked an airbnb room just off Jaffa Street – a pedestrian mall steps from the Jaffa Gate of old Jerusalem. My dig director dropped me off nearby and I followed my host’s directions to a quaint courtyard. My room opened off an arched stairway and was all that was promised – rustic, cosy and clean. I showered, oriented myself with a study of online maps and headed off to old Jerusalem.

I’d heard stories of just how easy it is to get lost in the winding streets of the walled city, so I went prepared with maps loaded to my phone and a plan. It took a turn or two… or three…but I was very soon magnificently lost. I’m still not sure precisely which route I followed or which streets I was on. 

I was fighting the temptation to get caught up in the romance of the biblical city, but I lost the battle somewhere along King David Street. Threading through the crowd in this warren of tourist shops, dodging robed clerics of various faiths, awash in the scent of eastern spices and enchanted by the multi-hued goods, the haunting notes of the Muslim call to prayer stopped me in my tracks. I caught my breath, holding back tears, suddenly overwhelmed by the realization: I’m in Jerusalem. I am in JERUSALEM.

Leaning in a doorway momentarily to catch my balance, the shopkeeper noted my distress and urged me to come in, take some tea, sit down a moment. I think the streak of white hair that I sport may have garnered more sympathy than I was due – but I took advantage of the invite. I knew it was likely a sales pitch – and it was to some extent – but I decided to accept it as a kindness. 

I sat, sipped herbed tea, discussed the beautiful handmade silver pomegranate pendants on display and when I made it  clear that the price was far beyond my meagre budget, we spoke instead of our children and travels. Refreshed, I bid goodbye and continued my wanderings. I found the western wall, had a glimpse of the Temple mount but was unable to find my way there as the passages were barred inexplicably by soldiers. I was accosted by a vendor of freshly pressed pomegranate juice and when he learned that I was from Canada, he waved me in to the depths of his shop. Reaching in to a dusty cupboard, he retrieved an handful of well-thumbed photographs. There he was, pictured with his son in Vancouver, in Banff, in Ottawa, here with his grandchildren in Montreal…he’d seen nearly as much of Canada as I had! Further along there were sweets to sample and intricate embroidery to admire. I was unable to resist an elderly vendor of fresh figs, although I was admonished by a passer-by for paying far too much. I never recovered my planned route, but I found enough unexpected corners, sights and sounds to occupy several hours of wandering. 

A church…somewhere

Colourful shopping…

The walls of Jerusalem

A quiet passage

King David Street…I think

Went past this twice and never found my way back…

Church of the Holy Sepulchre

Up, down and all around

Another quiet passage

Finally stumbling upon the Damascus Gate, I exited the walled city and headed back to my room. The quiet courtyard was now home to several little bistros opening for the night’s business. After dinner at a small cafe, I turned in for the evening. Conversation and music drifted up to my little room into the wee hours of the morning but, happily, I slept through most of it. 

A few thousand more words…

I had an internet problem tonight that I finally managed to fix – thank you, Apple forums! – so before I grab that forty (or more) winks, I leave you with these.

Roman amphitheatre at Beit She’an

To the top of the hill!

View from the gallery seats

Tree from the Life of Brian

Sea of Galilee in the distance

Castle arches of Belvoir

Rosh Hanikra grottoes

Another season’s end

The 2018 dig season is a wrap. The last of the die-hards departed early this morning; some off to dig at Zincirli in Turkey, some to home – and I to continuing adventures.

Nearly three weeks have flown by in a blur of early wakings, lengthy days and plentiful strong coffee. A steady supply of new artifacts has been appearing on my desk, nearly the number I would expect in the usual longer time in Turkey.  I nearly made it across the finish line, but some hours of work remain to close out the season.

Somewhere in there was a morning outing to a sea cave on the Lebanon border, two field trips and an evening stroll to the Mediterranean shore to feed the mosquitoes. I dipped my toes in the Sea of Gallilee, looked over Jordan, clambered through a crusader castle and strolled Roman pavements. The highway signs are laden with story:  Nazareth, Bethlehem, Tiberius, Jordan. History lies thick on this land and beneath it.

And today I am in Jerusalem.

That’s a story for another day. Time to tuck in early in my cool stone-lined nook of a room and try to replace a few of the hours of sleep I’ve been missing.

 

New season

The days are passing as quickly as they ever do on an archaeological dig, blending one into another. The season at Tell Keisan was already half way through when I joined in, so it’s been easy to pick up the established rhythm. 

The excavation crew depart for the site in the dark of early morning well before we of the house staff arise.The dawn chorus is barely begun as we settle to our various tasks, not reaching full voice until somewhat past first breakfast. The birdsong here is varied and melodious, a change from the frenetic cooing of pigeons I’m accustomed to waking with in Turkey. The rasping buzz of cicadas climbs in volume as the heat builds, eventually masking the hum of traffic on the highway nearby. Our proximity to the seashore brings stifling humidity in addition to the Middle Eastern heat. 

We are housed in the guest facilities of a local kibbutz: small, comfortably furnished rooms – air conditioned – clustered about a shady courtyard. A few rooms have become makeshift offices, the pottery is sorted in growing stacks on tables on the lawn and multitudinous bags of soil samples are tucked into tiled alcoves outside our door. Coffee awaits in plentiful supply in the dining hall and we avail ourselves continuously of the stimulant as we work through the morning. 

The objects cluttering my desk are familiar – parallel to the small finds at Zincirli: beads, a spindle whorl, figurine fragments. I fill my new pens, peer through the magnifying lens, measure carefully and begin to pencil in the lines of worked stone, bone and clay – elements of an ancient story we are assembling.

We join the returning dig crew at the dining hall across the kibbutz for our mid-day meal. They are dust-coated, sweat-drenched and weary from the morning’s work. We glean news of recent finds and developments, and tramp back to quarters to shower or rest briefly before the afternoon work session. A lecture from one of the dig specialists rounds out most afternoons – fascinating insights to the many aspects of archaeology – offered in the hour before the evening meal.

I find myself eagerly anticipating meals. Besides the welcome break from long working hours, breakfast, lunch and dinner each present an array of tantalizing dishes: colourful salads, cheeses, yogurt, pickled and fresh vegetables, baked goods, breaded and roasted and stewed meats… and everything is delicious. I enjoy and anticipate Turkish food too – but these particular tastes are new and novel and I am definitely enjoying the discovery process while resisting seconds.

After dinner we scatter to various conversations in the darkened courtyard – renewing acquaintances and cultivating new friendships, sorting out new names and faces. Israeli digs work somewhat differently than those elsewhere in that a part of our field staff is composed of volunteers as opposed to students, attracting a more varied demographic. I’m enjoying not being the only (partially) grey-haired participant.

Nearly at the end of my first week, I hope to finally visit the dig site tomorrow. In anticipation of tomorrow’s early rising, my two Israeli roommates and I tuck in at an early hour. Sleep comes easily, cosily curled beneath the comforting hum of the air conditioner. 

Off again…

Autumn became winter, then winter became spring and now we are half way through summer. I’ve shamelessly neglected this blog so rather than face the daunting task of catching you up, I’ll just launch in to my current exploits, shall I?

Here I am once again – half way around the world. New country. New dig. 

Tomorrow I begin as the illustrator at Tell Keisan, working once again with Dr. David Schloen – this time in Israel. It’s been lovely landing in a strange place to find familiar faces from past seasons at Zincirli – friendships that reach back over years and stretch across many miles. With more than fifty staff here, there are also many new faces to learn in the next two weeks! 

I’ve arrived on the weekend so it’s been an easy start: yesterday a half day to catch up on sleep and slip into a new rhythm, and today to tour a nearby dig at Tel Dor at the edge of the sea, followed by time on the beach. I have to honestly say that this has been, hands down, the best first day on a dig I have enjoyed thus far! Nonetheless, I’m still a little sleep deprived and jet lagged. So I leave you with a snapshot of the Mediterranean from the Israeli shore.

More soon…

Season’s end

Yesterday I awoke in the Turkish city of Adana; this morning my window overlooks the Toronto airport, the city skyline in the hazy distance. Tomorrow, I’ll wake to my Kelowna valley view. The 2017 Zincirli season is not only over, but half a world away.

As ever, the final days of the dig were frantically busy. The few of us left behind to conclude the season worked intensely – but also enjoyed some cosy communal time. The smaller group fit companionably along the courtyard picnic tables, lingering over evening meals, sampling the local wines in a vain search for something palatable, dissecting world events and digesting the season’s findings. A challenging jigsaw puzzle focussed our attention the final nights but, alas, too late in the day for completion. Our numbers dwindled by twos and threes until the final departures this week. Now the offices are sealed awaiting our return.

I leave you with a few images from this year’s work and travels. Heading home…

View toward Zincirli from nearby Tilmen Hüyük

Tilmen Hüyük

Adana

Tel tour

Pottery yard

My desk…

Tarsus

Cleopatra’s gate, Tarsus

Time flies!

I’ve been here on the dig for three weeks and we’re already past the half way point of the season. Spare time seems to be at a premium. I’m using my afternoons to catch a nap rather than socialize or write. The usually punishing schedule is particularly punishing this year; could it be advancing age??

If the pattern holds, we’re easing into September weather. Temperatures are in a slightly more comfortable range – in the morning and evening, certainly. Our start time has been dialled back to account for a later sunrise, and we ended our evening meal after dark tonight. I have a full crate of artifacts collecting beneath my desk, awaiting attention: an assortment of partial stone vessels, clay weights and such. Nothing that you would recognize as ‘treasure’ but it all tells a story. I’ve drawn about half of what is on my “to do” list, and more comes in from the field each day. Maybe that accounts for the lack of free time more than my age?

While I continue to play catch up here, I thought I’d hold you at bay with a few photos from a recent trip to the Gaziantep museum. The stele I’m posed with and the orthostat were two of the very first finds that I was assigned to draw in 2008. I was only here for three weeks that first season – a “try out” for the position of illustrator. I cut my teeth on some major material and passed the test, so here I am nine years later. The museum case may not seem like much to you – but it’s the first time ever that I’ve seen a collection with which I’d been up close and personal: I’d drawn (and handled) every artifact in the display!

 

 

Mundane and magic

Just over a week into the latest dig and I’m thinking how hard it is to recapture the feeling of when everything was new and novel. How do I convey what it means to be here if I’m so settled in routine that I no longer see what is unique to this place and this undertaking?

It’s why a weekend such as this past one is so special: a trip to Antakya – a familiar destination – in the company of Evren and Sebastiano, who I have known since my first season, to meet another friend, Zeki – a past camp director also from that first season. Before starting out, it all felt a bit routine – nothing exciting, but a way to spend the day off. I’ve been to Antakya so many times. I’ve seen the mosaics at the old museum, I’ve traveled that stretch of highway… many times. I’ve known these people for years. Yet, in the midst of the familiar: surprises.

Antakya – and the countryside and, well, Turkey – are bristling with new construction. The downtown area was much transformed and the new museum is impressive and up to the moment. A new ‘museum hotel’ is underway – modular and innovative and reminding me a little of Habitat from Montreal’s Expo ’67. The mosaics and artifacts from the old museum are showcased in a way that gives them space and context, and there was an impressive display of new finds from the University of Toronto’s expedition at Tel Tayinat. Zeki had to restrain me at one point, suggesting I stop continually announcing, “ Hey, I drew one of those! and I drew one like that, too and…” (clearly, I like my job.)

Along with Evren and Seba were Tizi and Valentina, who were unfamiliar with Antakya. Zeki was keen to share the sights with us – and so I revisited the Church of St. Peter – a cave church dating back to New Testament times, visited by both apostles Peter and Paul and said to be the community where the new disciples were first called “Christians.” He drove us to a vantage point high over the city, but not so high as the remains of the walls that once completely encircled it.

Then we went to lunch, Zeki leading us down a narrow, nondescript lane and through a doorway into…magic. Once across the threshold we were all enchanted by the architecture of an earlier time. These are my favourite Turkish moments: the modern, hurried world gives way. Friends gather in the cool shade of an interior courtyard, pull up around a table, share new flavours and old stories, locking in new memories to recount down the road.

Riding home later, watching the hills shade to crimson in the light of sunset, I was reminded of the hills I see from my own front window and how I have watched them change constantly over the day and through the seasons. The familiar need not ever be mundane nor routine. There is always magic – if you keep looking for it.  Occasionally, you need a friend to remind you.

 

Once around the circle…

Hello again. Welcome back. I know. It’s been a while.

I’m sitting on my balcony as darkness falls. A chill glass of white from a neighbourhood winery sits to hand. The distant clouds are frosted in pink, the nearer hills shading to bronze; following a week under the shroud of a smokey haze, it’s lovely to breathe clear air and see down the valley again. The crickets have begun their nightly chorus – the rhythmic song of late summer that lulled me to sleep my first nights here.

It was a year ago this weekend that I left behind my home in Ontario. I’ve come round the calendar, marking the changes and learning the rhythms of this new home. I’ve seen the summer orchards shade to bronze and copper, watched as winter crept down from the peaks and watched it retreat again, drank in the scent of orchards in blossom, marvelled as clusters of fruit appeared among the rows.  It was peach season when I arrived and it’s peach season again; each day’s offering bigger and juicier than the day before. Berries, apricots and cherries have had their day, now root vegetables and field tomatoes are crowding the stalls. Cabbages and pumpkins ripen in the fields, the trees are burdened with still-green apples.

Summer is far from over here in the Okanagan – but I’ll be heading off in the morning to spend the remaining weeks of the season in Turkey.  After a year of exploring and learning a new place, it’s time to return to a familiar one. The dig at Zincirli opened at the beginning of August and I’ve had word that lovely objects have emerged from the soil and are waiting to be drawn. I’m eager to reconnect with friends – it’s been nearly two years! – and I’m wondering how the sleepy little village of Fevzipaşa has fared meanwhile. I’m awash in thoughts of steaming tea in tulip glasses, tiny cups of morning espresso, late night conversations in a windy courtyard and early mornings awakening to a somewhat-less-than-melodious call to prayer. Adventure – of a sort – awaits.

If you’ve been following this blog previously, you have an idea of what’s to come. If you’re new here – you may want to take a look at this early post to catch up on what I’m up to. Old friend or new – I hope you’ll come along!