Every year, the Penn Museum provides support to Penn undergraduates and graduate students as they deepen their understanding of the human experience outside the Museum’s walls. Follow these blog posts from our intrepid young scholars as they report on the sights and sites that they encounter throughout their travels in the field.
2 July 2015
Gordion Excavation House, Yassihöyük, Turkey
I’ll start with an introduction: my name is Janelle Sadarananda, and I am a rising second-year PhD student in Penn’s Art and Archaeology of the Mediterranean World (AAMW) program. Thanks to a generous grant from the Penn Museum, I have embarked on a summer of archaeological fieldwork in Greece and Turkey.
My summer began when I arrived in Athens at the end of May to participate in the Eastern Boeotia Archaeological Project (EBAP), an excavation that I have been a part of since 2013. Last week, I started over at a different site when I left Greece for central Turkey, to join the Penn Museum’s Dr. Brian Rose and the rest of the team at Gordion. EBAP excavates at the site of anient Eleon, a settlement that is allowing researchers to better understand the Mycenaean world in the post-palatial period (1450–1100 BCE). Gordion is most well known as the capital of the Phrygian civilization in in the 13th through 6th centuries BCE, but the site also has significant Bronze Age, Achaemenid, Hellenistic, Roman, and Ottoman levels. Both sites are fascinating and exciting places to work.
This is my sixth summer of fieldwork, but it is also a summer of fresh starts and new experiences. During my three weeks at EBAP, I supervised my own trench for the first time. My position as trench supervisor came with new responsibilities. I documented and recorded each day’s activities and finds in my trench, and I played a role in making decisions about the excavation process, consulting with directors Dr. Brendan Burke and Dr. Bryan Burns. Acting as a supervisor allowed me to further my understanding of the principles of archaeology and to contribute to answering EBAP’s research questions, shedding more light on life at ancient Eleon.
Another one of my responsibilities as a trench supervisor was to direct and oversee students in the excavation of my trench. As I was learning about the ins and outs of supervising, students from the University of Victoria and Wellesley College were learning the ins and outs of archaeology in the field for the first time. Their fresh perspective helped me appreciate archaeology in new ways. It’s difficult to become jaded about “boring” potsherds when students in your trench have never unearthed or touched any kind of ancient pottery before, and are full of questions and opinions about every find. Even mundane tasks, like weeding, are infused with a sense of newness and excitement – after all, as some students remarked, how often do most people clear weeds from the base of an exquisitely engineered polygonal wall?
The learning curve in my trench was steep: as I was figuring out the best ways to stay on top of documentation paperwork, Ashley was learning how to identify different soil textures and to define the edges of a pit, and Arianna was solidifying her understanding of the locus and lot system. Each day was as rewarding as it was exhausting (but an afternoon swim at the beach always made us feel like new). For fresh perspectives and accounts of new experiences in the students’ own words, you can visit http://ebapexcavation.blogspot.com. The excavations at Eleon continue until July 11th, so follow the blog to see how the season is unfolding!
When I said goodbye to the EBAP team, I started another new adventure here at Gordion. This is my first time working on this project, though I’ve studied the site. New trenches have been opened and new features are being unearthed every day, which means the discovery of exciting material is imminent. I am also observing and participating in an outreach program for local high schoolers, run by the Gordion excavation. So far we’ve gone on two great field trips, with more coming up over the next month. I am looking forward to the next several weeks in the field and with the local students!