Hard to believe that it is almost time to leave for Turkey. Ten months of preparation: permit applications, fundraising, recruiting personnel, planning the excavation areas, purchasing equipment and supplies, database management, endless lists, and now we are off. It takes a great deal of logistics to get nearly 30 people from nine countries to all show up in the right place at the right time, and with all the supplies we need for two months of work, but the effort is sure worth it when we get down to work!
On Thursday night, the first wave of archaeologists will arrive in Diyarbakir Airport, to be met by our driver, Mehmet, for a happy reunion. We’ll drive down to Tepe, about an hour to the southeast, and work begins in earnest on Friday. Hopefully we will be able to get our internet connection at the dig house set up quickly, so we can keep the blog updated. If everything goes according to plan, we will open up our sealed depots where the artifacts that are still awaiting analysis from previous seasons are stored, and get to work on Saturday. Inshallah! We are only in the field for two months, so every workday counts. We work six days a week, with Friday off, but this Friday is going to be non-stop work as we set up our dighouse and the laboratories. Each year we put all of our equipment in storage since we only rent our dighouse for the time we are in Turkey, so each season starts with housekeeping.
But first, we have two days of travel ahead.
