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Engineer Amongst The Ruins by Mert GÜNEŞ

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The one thing I got most often from the people I met in Labraunda was “Ah, so you’re the engineer.” While it certainly was unusual for me to be there given my background, I was lucky enough to fulfill my childhood dream of taking part in an excavation. My stay in Labraunda was quite an experience. The site itself is marvellous, anywhere you look you can see parts of history, any rock you step on has probably been in use for thousands of years. It has a fine balance with nature where you’re surrounded by forestation but it’s not the middle of nowhere, and you may encounter the occasional lizard or most likely a spider. I even saw a porcupine once. The sunrise and sunset are quite beautiful and the night sky is visibly clear with no shortage of stars after about nine pm, which is refreshing after the rather blank night skies of bigger cities. The mountain air and the freshness of the water has something about it that gives you strength no matter how tired you get, even for someone such ...
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A Modern Citizen of Labraunda by Ayşe Eda TARAKCI

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Having just graduated from the department of architecture of  Bilkent  University, I truly had the opportunity to start discovering architecture in a way that I couldn’t experience reading textbooks. And here at Labraunda, I believe that I got the chance to experience something truly nuanced. I have travelled to ancient cities before, but there is no possible way of comparing the experience I had as a tourist with that I acquired here being a part of the team. Here, I was not a mere observer; but was a member that stayed, learned, documented and lived on the site. Being on the site all the time, I had the privilege to have a glimpse of the lifestyle that the ancient people once had here. And being deprived of technology and internet most of the time I would say, only enhanced this impact.  I must admit before I came here, I had very little notion of what it was like to live in the countryside and being so much in contact with nature. I am sure that just after I lef...
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A marve*law*s week and a half in Labraunda by Lidya ERCAN

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Hello dear reader, this is Lidya!  I stayed in the ancient s ite of Labraunda for almost two weeks in July 2019. It was not easy for me to work, eat, sleep, basically live alongside the bugs, crickets, spiders, and many more but it was one of the best decisions I have ever made (others, having studied law, spent a whole year in Hamburg as Erasmus students and learnt Latin, so you do the comparison!). Oh by the way, I am a recent law graduate from Bilkent University. And no worries, at the end of this post you will have seen how and why I am here.  Figure 1: The Restoration Team!! For the first week I was a part of the restoration team and after that I helped our recently graduated architect and my lovely friend Eda while measuring and drawing some of the constructions. My first week was amazing, I tried something new and exciting every day, such as cleaning the walls of the Oikoi, the floor of the Doric House and some marbles from anything biological that have been...
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It's not just an excavation by Merve GÜNAL

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Hi ! It’s Merve, again! But this time it is not related with like digging “digging”, kind of. It is related with how you preserve what you or previous archaeologists unearted before!  I joined Labraunda excavation team in 2017. It was my first classical period excavation, and I had no idea about the methods and processes in a classical period excavation. In my first year, I really liked and felt satisfied to see a project from start to end so I stayed the full season this year. In that year, Olivier Hoca nearly put me in every part of the excavation. For example, working in the ceramic lab (it really helped me to understand ceramics such as how to examine it and how to do the documentation of it), marble conservation (how to clean marble pieces without harming ancient marble and how to make it last longer and stronger) aaaannd RESTORATION! (how to preserve what you’ve unearthed starts here). I’ve become familiar and close with the Labraunda team during my first year by working w...
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Colors of the Work: Restoration Studies at the Oikoi and at the Doric Building by İrem Betül Cansever

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I was very excited and anxious before I came to Labraunda. Even though it would not be my first excavation experience. Every site has its own system and principles; that might create new conditions to get used to. Besides, it will be my first excavation experience concerning what I want to study in the future. When it comes to restoration I do not have any idea that it could be that much fun. As a person who has her education in archaeology, I start to feel like a doctor healing stones and saving their lives from the first day. It’s not the same thing as doctors do for sure; but considering the respect to the history, I perceived the enlightenment of protection inside. Figure  1 : Me and my college Sena removing the plants of the North Room of Oikoi We had a tour around the site in the first day and took photographs. The most beneficial part of the tour for me was to learn a bit about the site, it provides a consciousness to the person who works there. Our aim this ye...
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Archaeology Rocks! by Çağla Durak

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Me, working  The world we live in is so fascinating and exciting that it is full of memories and traces of past societies. As soon as the new season has started, I realized again that I have an amazing job. This season started for me when I participated to the Labraunda Survey Project which is also directed by our beloved Instructor Olivier Henry. Ayşe, teaching me how to survive in the forest Since 1994 (I wasn’t even born yet) it is known that rock paintings around the Latmos region existed and thanks to the Malkaya cave sondage and surface findings, these paintings are now dated to the Late Neolithic and Early Chalcolithic periods which correspond to the 6 th and 5 th millennia BC in Western Anatolia. These paintings were made with red color mostly. Figures are showing male and female figures, animals and some geometrical shapes. Especially human figures were made in two different styles. In schematic style, figures have M shaped heads while they have circular he...
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THE PLEASURE AND THE PAIN : A TRIP TO KODAPA by Merve Günal

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Climbing the slope to Kodapa, incredible terrasing! Archaeology has lots of definitions that reflect everyone’s point of view. For me, (it’s not totally an explanation) archaeology is like a never ending story that includes lots of experiences that leads you to push your limits. Since I was little, I always liked to be outdoors and taking trips to places I didn’t see before. Archaeology actually gave me this opportunity, because you cannot be an accomplish archaeologist before you visited a lot of sites and also did a lot of fieldwork. In a way it is like an one-stone-two-birds situation for me. While I am enjoying having a trip, I also do my (home)work. I think this is one of the reasons why I love archaeology (and it is not a 9 am - 5 pm office job like being a lawyer or economist... sorry but not sorry guys, I do not like it, but if you are an academician it is different of course).  I mean being outdoors and moving all around are good for you and for your health guys (...
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