Domuztepe dig diary
Week six: packing up
British Museum curator Alexandra Fletcher reports from
Domuztepe
It has been a week focussed on moving crate
after crate of archaeological finds.
Excavations started at Domuztepe in 1995
and
over the years a sizable
store of objects has built up. To our horror, when we arrived this
year we found that our old store room had been flooded and invaded
by cats and mice, probably through a broken window.
Fortunately, we were offered a new home in the
local museum and this week it was ready for us to move in. Every
crate of finds was checked for damage and luckily, held within
their bags and boxes, most things were fine. We had huge amounts of
help from colleagues at
Kahramanmaraş Museum - lifting boxes, giving us space to
work on objects, staying open late and, probably most importantly,
keeping up a steady supply of sweet, strong, black Turkish tea to
keep us all going.
By the end of the week we had moved just
under 300 crates of objects, most of them very heavy, across town
in a lorry and then up and down several flights of stairs. We
discovered muscles we never knew we had and were very glad to see
the new store finally locked and sealed up. With all our
conservation, recording, photography and drawing for this year’s
excavation also finished this week it was time to pack up the camp
ready to leave.
Saying goodbye to everyone is always sad and
the team scattered
to different homes in Turkey,
America and Britain. The sadness is also tinged with relief at the
thought of living in a house again, instead of a tent, and there is
always the next Domuztepe dig season to look forward to.
It just remains to say a big ‘thank you’ to all those who
made Domuztepe 2008 possible, especially the British Institute at
Ankara, the British Museum Department of Conservation and
Scientific Research, the British Museum and all our friends and
colleagues in Kelibişler Köyü, Kahramanmaraş and Pazarcık.
Images (from top):
- Flint arrowhead found in 2008
- Moving out of the old object store
- Loading up the lorry
- Stone stamp seal found in 2008