Our last digging season ended in a whirlwind of activity and I’ve been meaning to go back and finish off the last 2013 blog entries for months… and here it is 2014 already! As I told you last season, the 2014 season will be our last in Turkey. We are not going to be excavating this season on the mound or lower town, but we are still anticipating lots of interesting discoveries. Our goal this season is to fully process and record previously excavated finds stored in our depot in preparation for the final publications. This is the unglamorous side of archaeology – long hours in the laboratories – but very rewarding work.
A small crew arrived in Diyarbakir on Monday night and met with the new museum director, Mehmet Eneze, and our museum representative, Leyla Ay. Today, we opened our depots and set up a temporary field camp. On Friday, we will move into the local school that has served for the past two years as our field camp, but in the meantime we have accomodations at a hotel in Bismil. The garden will be a comfortable spot for a few days and here you see Jane, Tina, Emily, Tim and Azer (Willis took the picture) hard at work. With such a short field season (our last day is August 15) there is no time to waste! Check back in for our latest discoveries in the coming days.
