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.

Read more about the Domuztepe research project

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