Turkey Expedition, Kerkenes Archaeological Project, June - July 2002In 2002 I was invited by Prof. David Stronach to join the Kerkenes Archaeological Project in Turkey. Prof. Stronach is my Phd advisor from U.C. Berkeley and the co-project director, along with Geoffrey and Francoise Summers, both of whom live and teach in Turkey. What follows is my adaptation of the site description from the Kerkenes website: Kerkenes is an Iron Age city built on a low mountaintop in Central Anatolia (AKA Turkey). Geoffrey and Francoise Summers believe it to be, and want it to be, the place that Herodotus called Pteria, in which case it would have been founded by the Medes around 600 BC and used as the base from which they conducted the 5-year war with Lydia that ended at the Battle of the Eclipse in 585. (Alas, nobody else, myself included, believes their claim as there is no evidence whatsoever to back it up. In fact, there's nothing Median about the site, let alone a suggestion that it's the specific Median site of Pteria. Geoffrey said to me "Although there is no evidence to prove it yet, I will continue to defend my identification of Kerkenes as Pteria.") And, in 2003, this theory was disproved, once and for all. Seven kilometres of strong stone defenses, pierced by seven gates, enclose 2.5 square kilometers. The entire urban area was planned to include public buildings and urban blocks as well as a sophisticated system of water management. The city was then deliberately torched and the defences comprehensively slighted. According to Herodotus, the Pterians were enslaved by Croesus, King of Lydia, before the Battle of Pteria, fought between Cyrus the Great of Persia and the Lydians, in about 547. Later occupation was restricted to the Kale (citadel mound) and the Kiremitlik. An international team has been working each summer since 1993 on the Kerkenes Dag, using new techniques to reveal the secrets of this ancient city. Here is what was accomplished during the 2002 season at Kerkenes, according to the project website: "In 2002, the tenth season of research, the geomagnetic survey of the entire 2.5km2 of this exceptionally large Iron Age capital on the Kerkenes Dag was finished. This brought to a conclusion the remote sensing survey in which various methods, including satellite imagery, balloon photography, close contour GPS mapping and geophysical survey have been used to reveal surface and sub-surface remains in remarkable detail. Excavations at the Palace Complex revealed architecture of quite unexpected sophistication and grandeur. The location of a monumental gateway leading into the complex was established and excavation at the very large Audience Hall was resumed. In addition, a special building incorporating a row of ashlar masonry with incised ‘mason marks’ was partially investigated. At the Cappadocia Gate a section was cut across the entrance passage, the extent of the well preserved walling at the back of the north-east tower was revealed and a part of the stone glacis was repaired." My perspective: I happily flew half-way around the world - and took a costly time-out from my life and business - to work on this project at the invitation of Prof. Stronach, my graduate advisor since 1992. Though we have enjoyed many years of gradaute seminars, friendship, and collaboration, this was our first opportunity to work together in the field. Well, at least we thought so. Unfortunately, my work schedule as an endurance sports promoter didn't mesh well with his, so our stays at Kerekenes only overlapped by 24 hours: just long enough to snap a few photos in the field to prove that I really had worked overseas with one of archaeology's most respected and clear thinking pioneers. It was a proud moment for me, but I regret that we didn't enjoy actual time working in the field together. The silver lining of the trip was three-fold:
My slideshows from the summer
Here are the main people with whom I worked and lived at Kerkenes: Geoffrey, Francoise, Pamela, and Natalie Summers, Turkey
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