Archaeologists love maps. We spend a great deal of time and effort making maps of our excavation trenches, our sites, and the broader region in which we work. Below is one of the essentials of any project – a topographic map. In our first season at Ziyaret Tepe (1997), my colleague Guillermo Algaze and I made a map of the entire site using a total station and a hand-held compass. This map shows the changes in elevations across the site.
- Topographic map showing the elevation contours, extent of the site (shaded), and the main areas of excavation (designated with a letter A-S).
The citadel mound is in the north-central part of the site, with the lower town extending to the west, east, and south. Our survey work in past years suggests that the city does not extend to the north and today the limit of the site is marked by a modern road. As you can see, despite over a decade of excavation, we have only exposed less the 2% of the ancient city of Tushhan.
I’ll refer back to this map from time to time so that you can orient our different excavation and geophysical projects across the ancient cityscape.
One reply on “A topographic map of the site.”
Archaeologists DO love maps, I couldn’t agree more. Blog looks great, I look forward to following!