August 24-30, 2003

Visitors last week included Klaus Rheidt and several team members from the excavations at Aizanoi. Most of our daily life, however, was dominated by completing the photographical recording of this season's many finds. Computer specialist Rudy Pelsmaekers showed his skills by ironing the cloth background for our pictures, while Bram Ottoy completed the statue of Aphrodite. (We eventually gave up this temporary completion of the statue.)

As normal for the final week of an excavation, there were many festivities as well. As it was director Marc Waelkens' fifteenth excavation season at Sagalassos, he was presented with honorary plates and a kelim (a locally produced woven carpet) by the province's governor Rasih Özbek, the local kaymakam (sub-governor) Orhan Burhan, and by Aglasun's mayor Mustafa Inci.

Friday evening the 74 "survivors" all enjoyed a farewell dinner at the local trout restaurant, ending with a party until the early morning hours. Most of the team members left Aglasun the same morning, including 25 people returning to Belgium. A small group stayed behind for another week to complete closure of the site and finalize the database, inventory, and study of pottery and metal.

August 17-23, 2003

Everything was routine this week with birthdays (two), illnesses (a few cases of laryngitis), and seminars (Monday on metallurgy, Wednesday on contextual analysis). However, it was our most exciting week so far.

We had the pleasure to welcome two of our greatest fans and regular visitors over the past five years--Godelieve Van Steen-Baert, a member of the family partially sponsoring restoration of the Antonine nymphaeum, and Gaby Pletinckx. They found us completely carried away by the "statue festival" at the Hadrianic nymphaeum. August 19 was a day of particular euphoria, when several larger statue parts and 23 crates of smaller fragments were taken down to the excavation house at sunset.

This date was also the anniversary of a sad day in the history of our excavations, one of our two major accidents last year. Luckily we've not had any this year thanks to the efforts of our safety managers. In both cases, one of our female architects (Özge Basagaç, then Paola Pesaresi) fell 4-6 meters and suffered bad fractures. Happily, both wonderful people have completely recovered and the fact that they returned with more enthusiasm than ever to the site this year was a great morale boost. We offered them champagne that evening and dedicated the success of the season to them, especially the marvelous finds of that day.

August 10-16, 2003

As the archaeological survey team finished up last week (see Urban Survey, August 3-9), the number of participants dropped for the first time this season. Luc Karremans joined Johan Van Neck (both KULeuven) as one of our safety managers. Dr. Jan Cardyn has replaced Dr. Juan Willems and will take care of us for the last three weeks of the campaign. Fortunately, there were no severe accidents or illnesses this week, just colds and bruises. Our visitors included Stefan Mores, president of the "Friends of Sagalassos," and his wife Friedl Van Goethem.

We had a seminar on Monday evening presented by the geological and geomorphological teams (Philippe Muchez, Dominique Similox-Tohon, Etienne Paulissen, and Veronique De Laet), and another on Wednesday on palynology and macrobotanical research (Marc Waelkens and Thijs Van Thuyne).

It was a rather uneventful week, though some of our conservators turned into hairdressers. No snakes or rodents were encountered! Our stomachs were filled as ever by our skilled cooks, Mustafa and Kamile Kantekin, who manage to prepare a variety of three-course dinners every evening for 65 people on two simple gas stoves.

August 3-9, 2003

We reached maximum capacity this week, with the most number of scientists, disciplines, and students yet. Not counting our 72 workmen, the team now consists of 95 participants. This should also explain the length of this week's field notes.

Staff members are responsible for tasks such as controlling the budget on a weekly basis, calculating the wages of the workmen at the end of each week, and keeping track of plane ticket bookings and transport to and from the airport. They also must move 170 people to the site and back each day, organize the lodging of 95 people, and take care of their laundry--a task accomplished by our loyal washing machine that's worked nearly 18 hours a day for 14 years. Our staff also has to organize meals at two restaurants in town, as our maximum seating capacity in the excavation house is 62 people. All of this requires a lot of shopping and similar tasks. For the eleventh year, this was handled by our most dedicated volunteer Leo Bolsens and his wife Rachel Guns. The only shopping carried out by the team itself is that of buying sesame breads ("simits") for the 10:30 a.m. on-site tea break with the workmen, delivered to the entrance of the excavation house each morning by our trench supervisors and other team leaders.

Dr. Juan Willems continues to take care of our health. Besides the usual flues and intestinal problems, the doctor also had to deal with a case of appendicitis this week. Our safety is covered by engineer Etienne Landuyt and newcomer Johan Van Neck, a professional safety manager (KULeuven). Karel Paul bumped his head on a door lintel in the excavation house, resulting in a small concussion, so we're now having to consider asking participants not to grow taller than two meters.

Dirk Menten and Ilse Desmedt again took dozens of tourists around for free five days of the week. Next week will unfortunately be the last we can offer this service, as the guides for the second half of August had to cancel. Visitors this week included dendrochronologist Peter Kuniholm (Cornell University) and his team, as well as visits by our colleagues from Xanthos, Aphrodisias, and Diokaisareia.

Everything else went smoothly, topped off with two more evenings of birthday ice cream. We also had two seminar presentations this week, one by the conservation team (Paola Pesaresi, Eric Risser, Nerina De Silva) and one by the survey team (Hannelore Vanhaverbeke and Femke Martens) and our mineralogist Patrick Degryse. The most "dangerous" event during the week was a mouse in one of the sleeping rooms. After terrorizing the occupants for a few nights, it was eventually caught by one of the workmen. As you can see, archaeologists are no Indiana Jones characters.

July 27-August 2, 2003

We celebrated two more birthdays this week. We were also honored by a visit from Belgian ambassador Jan Matthijsen and his lovely wife, who took good care of one of our Turkish architects in Ankara last year when he had to be operated on after a fall. There were some illnesses this week, mainly among our workmen, but Dr. Juan Willems' treatment was effective as always.

Meanwhile, director Marc Waelkens had his third close encounter with a snake--a second viper! He's also managed to lose 18 kilograms (about 40 pounds) in a mere two months through a strict diet and exercise on site. (Maybe running from snakes helps?) We're considering how to get the company that makes his protein diet to sponsor us, as dozens are following his example.

This week's seminar, presented by Wim Van Neer and Bea De Cupere, was dedicated to archaeozoological studies.

July 20-26, 2003

Our team has grown to 85 people. The atmosphere has been excellent, not in the least thanks to the cooperation of our two temsilcis, or Ministry of Culture representatives, Zehra Hanim (Anatolian Civilizations Museum, Ankara) for the urban activities and Erman Bediz (Adana Museum) for the surveys outside the city.

Logistics have been handled by volunteer Luc Vanhaverbeke and his wife Beatrice Vande Meulebroeke. Our guides, Dirk Menten and his wife Ilse De Smedt, have passed their enthusiasm and knowledge of Sagalassos free of charge to visitors who've found their way to the site. After Dr. Jan Cardyn left us last week, Dr. Juan Willems has been seeing to our health. This week, he had to treat some twisted ankles, sore throats, and one of the workmen for our first scorpion sting!

We also started our annual series of Wednesday seminars this week. These presentations for the students and other team members focus on the different disciplines of our project. This week, geophysicist Branco Music presented the find of the week and explained the technology that was applied.

July 13-19, 2003

There were no birthdays or Indiana Jones adventures this week, but we are still surrounded by some rather unwelcome guests, such as a kind of tarantula, which turned up between the beverage crates on the site, and some rather large black scorpions, which seem to populate, by preference, the Lower Agora. Tourism is gradually resuming and our two tour guides, who offer their unpaid services to all visitors, eventually could start the main activity for which they had come. This week we also had the honor to welcome two important Belgian visitors at Sagalassos. On Thursday, Professor Vic Goedseels, General Manager of the K.U. Leuven, visited the site, together with Louis Tobback, the current mayor of Leuven and former Belgian Minister of Internal Affairs. One of the most unpleasant events was a whirlwind which pulled down and knocked out our laser theodolite. Thanks to the characteristic Turkish hospitality it was temporarily replaced by a new instrument over the weekend. Another sign of hospitality was the invitation to assist at the first traditional folk concert in Aglasun, the village where we live. In his speech for almost 2,000 people, Professor Waelkens thanked the inhabitants of Aglasun for the fruitful cooperation since the start of the excavations in 1990. Just like President Kennedy in Berlin, he said: "Biz de Aglasunluyuz" (We all are people from Aglasun)!

July 6-12, 2003

This was our first week of full-scale excavations at Sagalassos. Our team grew from 17 to 52 members, including archaeologists, architects, conservators, safety engineers, and a forestry professor. We've reached the maximum capacity of serving food in the excavation house!

In the meantime, the team got used to the very rigid working hours (7:30 a.m. to 6 p.m.) on the site and to breakfast at 6:15 a.m. Our excellent Turkish cooks, together with the volunteers taking care of the daily logistics, manage to fill empty stomachs with excellent meals. We also had the chance to celebrate three birthdays this week, meaning birthday candles and ice cream for all team members.

There were no major accidents or illnesses thus far, although excavation director Marc Waelkens barely escaped a bite by a snake--a horn adder, which attacked him--by jumping down a steep bedrock outcrop and rolling down several meters along the slope. Thus far, this has been the only event in his life where he found himself in an "Indiana Jones situation." In any case, it was a good lesson for everybody, and preventive measures, including acquiring antiserum have resulted from this near accident. Because grazing within the site is forbidden, and given a winter and spring that were extremely wet, the vegetation is very luxuriant this year, offering snakes an excellent environment. We all are very careful now.