Building 49, Space 100 & 335, f. 4000

(my site diary entry from a few days ago)

This year I am working in Building 49, Space 100, probably for the duration of the excavation.  Building 49 is a small house, with plaster and the traditional features that characterize Catalhoyuk.  I started excavating platform f. 1651, located in the northwest corner of the building, which had a very large round impression in the center of the plaster, layer 13668.  I took off a series of red make-up, dirty surfaces, and white plaster, revealing the top of burial cut [14437], starting f. 4000.  After excavating the burial fill (14429), skeletons 14441 (a young woman) and 14440 (an infant) were revealed by Lori Hagar.  Along with the young female skeleton were a number of ground stone beads closely associated with the neck of the skeleton.  There was a small greenstone axe in the fill, possibly associated with the infant 14440.  A number of phytoliths were found associated with the young female skeleton, samples of which were taken by Lori.  After the skeletons were removed, I cleared out the burial cut [14437] to bottom of the burial cut, revealing a darker layer with construction debris throughout.  This layer has several instances of semi-articulated human bones, possibly disturbed by the later burials.  To date, I have cleaned most of this layer, in preparation for the next burial fill.

While the burial was being excavated by Lori, I moved to the south end of the building, to work on the north-facing wall f. 1658 and the interior wall, f. 1659.  I removed a layer of plaster that was overlying both walls, 14442.  The plaster was heavily degraded and had been conserved, making excavation difficult.  This plaster was overlying a niche [14450] in the wall above the oven that had been blocked (14448) with brick-like material, both excavated and recorded by Dan Eddisford.  This wall plaster, 14442, also covered the internal wall f. 1659, a somewhat ephemeral construction of plaster and makeup on the western extent of platform f. 1666.  I excavated several layers of make-up, and another layer of plaster, 14451, overlying, again, both f. 1658 and f. 1659.  This revealed a post-like column 14454, comprised of make-up and plaster.  This column was painted red during a phase of its use-life, and a sample was taken by Duygu Camurcuoglu for further study of painted plasters.  After the column was removed, another layer of plaster, 14453, was removed from the wall f. 1658 and the remains of f. 1659.  The removal of this plaster layer freed 14458, which was plaster in oven f. 4003, removed by Dan.  The last layer of make-up for f. 1659 was also beneath 14453, and the removal of this last instance of make-up freed a series of floors 14423 on platform f. 1666, which were removed as the end of the phase.

Archaeological Photography, the Uncanny Valley, and Lomography

Experimental photography in archaeology is a fascinating and ever-expanding genre.  Fotis Ifantidis’ Visualizing Neolithic has been a source of constant inspiration for reimagining what is usually a very proscribed and ritualized methodology for documenting archaeological sites.  In the Experience, modes of engagement, archaeology session, Sara Perry’s Fractured Media presentation showed some of her own experiments–hopefully she’ll share them online at some point.

Photo by flickr user iessi.

Some of the innovation has been driven by technology, such as the growing prevalence of High Dynamic Range photography.  I find HDR photography uncanny at best, and downright creepy at worst.  Computer screens have a limited dynamic range, leading to problems with tone mapping.  Still, until the display issues are solved, HDR veers into the uncanny valley, where the verisimilitude of the image causes a disruptive response.

Photo by Tsim Schneider

On the other end of the spectrum is lomography, which employs low-quality toy cameras for an intentionally “bad” photograph that is blurry, off-color with light leaks.  These photos are more atmospheric but obviously not as accurate.  They contribute to an aesthetic of decay that compliments the subject.  HDR is too precious to me, too bejewelled and fantastic.  Lomography represents a more “accurate” view of the past in that it is hazy, hard to discern, never quite all there.  I’d like a chance to play with my Diana camera, but the toy cameras are actually much more difficult to handle–they’re finicky, analog, and I haven’t finished my first roll to check where the light leaks are.  Taking photos with a Lomo camera is a lot more risky and most attempts are not likely to turn out, something that is not acceptable for scientific documentation.  Still, it might be interesting to supplement other archaeological documentation with a slightly hazier view of the past.

WAC - The Big Day

It’s finally arrived, the day of my session from way back when.  I had to butcher my paper down to almost nothing in the interest of time, as we’re overbooked, but it should be okay.  I’ll be busy enough trying to keep things running smoothly.

I also have another presentation on the same day in a different session, so I’ll be a busy girl.  After this I will be able to enjoy the conference a bit more.  I’ve already met one of my fellow bloggers, Kenny Atchison, and was very happy to see another person with whom I’d only interacted digitally in the flesh.

On a terribly sad note, one of my session participants will not be joining us.  He was posted in South Africa, but had family in Zimbabwe, some of whom had become victims of political violence.  My thoughts go out to him and his family.  Words don’t really do the situation justice.

Ireland

There’s a giant butterscotch cat sitting on my lap as I peck away at the keyboard, one hand kept behind his battle-scarred ears–he’s a lover and a fighter–his claws digging into my thigh each time I stop petting. Beast.  It’s okay though, he and the peat fire are keeping me warm in a drafty, weird, rambling hostel that was converted from a monastery and is now filled with miscellaneous stuffed chairs, art, junk, and young French backpackers.  Tomorrow will be one week since I’ve left, and in that time I’ve made it about 3/4 of the way around the coast of Ireland.

One of my favorite days was spent in Belfast, taking in the murals generated by the conflicts between the Protestants and Catholics.  I don’t really see Ireland as my home country and when people ask me if I’m here to trace my genealogy (the first thing they do after they hear my name), I just smile and shrug.  But seeing the murals was sad and powerful and frustrating in a way that felt strangely close to home.  It could be that it was seeing my family names all over the tombstones and memorials that was upsetting, but I think what really caught me was the ever-present government housing in the major conflict areas and the futility of it all.

I managed to chase a lot of that away while scrambling over the amazing geometrical basalt formations at the Giant’s Causeway.  The hexagonal columns seem to break away from the black cliffs surrounding them and march into the sea.  The waves crash around them and form little pools where huge, hair-like strands of seaweed wind around the angular rocks.  It was all I could do to keep myself from chipping the basalt–it makes lovely bifaces in the right hands.

It’s hard to recap during trips; a lot of my time has been spent wandering around small country lanes in the rain, checking out obscure ruins, and talking with random people over pints of Smithix in pubs, but that doesn’t translate well to a travel narrative.  Over my laptop I can see that the sun is just now going down over the little tangle of green and trees outside the window–strange to be so far north.  The cat in my lap is so solidly asleep that he’s no longer purring and I’ve got a nice little mountain to climb tomorrow, so it’s probably time to finish this up and wander away to my bunk.  ‘Night.

Lightwriting at Stonehenge

I’m in Austin for a brief weekend to attend a wedding and recharge my sorely depleted reserves.  I die a little bit each time I leave Texas, but that’s for a different kind of blog entry in a different kind of blog.  Anyway, the wedding was at a country club near Georgetown, and it was nice and dark out there, with fireflies flitting in and out of the gnarled live oak branches.  Never mind the ridiculous green grass lawn in a countryside that was never meant for more than parched scrub and weathered limestone.  I was waiting out the festivities and picked up a National Geographic, where I was struck by this image:

Faithful readers may remember my desire to experiment with lightwriting, here:

http://middlesavagery.wordpress.com/2008/02/17/lightwriting/

It’s nice to see that I’m in good company!

Now it’s time to go to my favorite swimmin’ hole in the whole wide world, Hamilton Pool:

Wish you were here!

Presidio Miscellany

Cinzia, one of my fellow instructors for the Remixing El Presidio class, did a fun 3D model of the Presidio with Sketchup and Google Earth.  You can check it out here.

I’ve always found instructing rewarding, but this is a particularly fun class with great students who are really motivated.  It’s one of those rare instances where the students have started to take over the class and teach themselves and each other.  I’m excited to see the end results!

I also had the chance to tour Lucasfilm yesterday.  I wasn’t allowed to take any photos, which was tragic, but I did get a photo of my pass.  I didn’t manage to retrieve the Holy Grail or the Ark of the Covenant, but I did see the tiny robots from batteries not included, and squealed with delight–something I promised myself I wouldn’t do.  I guess the 9 year old in me took over.

In other news, I’m hosting a World Archaeological Congress social networking night during the conference in Dublin, Ireland on Tuesday night at The Duke.  If you’re attending WAC this year, I hope to meet you!

http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=18862190735&ref=mf

One last note!  I haven’t had time to check out the new iphone G3 release, but apparently I have to get one, and not only for the added GPS:

Wha??

Lego Archaeology Field Report

The south-facing wall and return are both of medieval origin and were repaired in the mid-1800s with undifferentiated gray and red bricks and concrete mortar.  This repair had been heavily degraded by the elements, and later repaired once again with a series of tiny (1cm x 3cm) multicolored plastic blocks.  The overall feature is 1.3m high and 0.3m wide, bolstering 12 courses of brick.  These small blocks were not structually viable for additional wall support, but may have served as protection from further degredation of the original mortar.

However, as conventional mortar was available at the estimated time of repair, it is suggested that these blocks represent a decorative element later appended to the structure.  The blocks are predominantly blue, perhaps representing a color preference, morphological convenience, or simply an abundance of that material.  Additional information regarding its internal structure will become apparent during the excavation of this feature.

http://www.janvormann.com/dispatchwork.php

Embedded Interpretation pt. II

I posted on the Presidio class blog about how to construct your own memory map/interpretation. It works on the One Laptop Per Child laptops as well!

Here’s the link:

http://remixpresidio.wordpress.com/2008/06/04/using-flickr-to-geospatially-embed-archaeological-interpretation/

PS: If anyone can help me debug Mbedr, it would be much appreciated.

Embedded Interpretation

So, once upon a time, a naive undergraduate from the University of Texas applied for graduate school in archaeology.  She sent out a statement of purpose that boiled down to: “I want to be able to embed archaeological information in the landscape, and I want other people to be able to add to that information…on my cellphone.”

Three years later, that’s what I did.  There’s several ways to do this, and this is obviously a kludge, but it’s a start.  I’ll probably load the full documentation up to the Presidio field blog later tonight.

Egypt Lantern Slides

The Brooklyn Museum has been uploading their lantern slide collection in high resolution to flickr; the latest batch is from Egypt, taken in 1900.

I have no particular obsession with Egyptology, but these photos are gorgeous.  Kudos to the Brooklyn Museum for sharing them.