Doggedly searching for the crux of the biscuit.
While drilling for an underground rail tunnel in Istanbul last fall, Turkish workers discovered the remains of an ancient port. Now, it has turned into Turkey's biggest archeological dig ever.
Archaeologists call it the Port of Theodosius, after the emperor of Rome and Byzantium who died in AD 395. They expect to gain insights into ancient commercial life in the city, once called Constantinople, that was the capital of the eastern Roman, Byzantine, and Ottoman empires. [...] So far, the 17 archaeologists, three architects, and some 350 workers at the site have found what they think might be a church, a gated entrance to the city, and eight sunken ships, which have Pulak particularly excited.
He believes the ships were wiped out in a giant storm. He said the wooden boats, all apparently destroyed around 1000, make up a sort of "missing link" in the history of shipbuilding because of the fusion of old and new techniques in a single boat. [...] The site is huge, about four city blocks long by two to three wide. [...]
Digging for the Marmaray tunnel has also led to archaeological finds in the Uskudar district on the Asian side of Istanbul and Sirkeci and Veznedar on the European side. Giant machines constructing the tunnel are dredging up artifacts from the sea floor in the Bosporus. Most of the tens of thousands of pieces likely to be uncovered will be cataloged and then reburied where they were found, said Metin Gokay, a scientist at the Istanbul Archaeological Museum. Only a small percentage will qualify as museum-quality pieces, while others will be used for research. Modern-day Turkish coins will be left with the reburied items as markers to show the area has been disturbed, just in case archaeologists many centuries later dig the site up again, Gokay said.
How very cool. Officials are planning to build a museum on the site and move the underground station further outside the city. National Geographic had a similar story recently about the seemingly endless discoveries that "urban speleologists" keep making under the streets and sewers of Rome. Unfortunately, only part of the story is available online and the photo gallery leaves out the most impressive shots. Sorta drives home just how young America really is.
TrackBackGiven that I learned most of my archaeology from Planet of the Apes, I wonder if the coin trick is a current practice, or a particularly clever idea of these in particular? It's just such a neat idea. (Though I wonder if it will confuse future interpretations of the site as much as it will help. "Clearly it was still in use!" "No way!" Etc.)
Posted by: Robust McManlyPants at July 25, 2006 04:18 PMHow very cool.
Oh sure. You don't have to dig subways anywhere in Europe or Asia Minor.
Dig a hole. Stop the backhoe. Call the archeologists. Wait a year. Dig a hole. Stop the backhoe. Call the archeologists...
Posted by: double-plus-ungood at July 25, 2006 05:02 PMYep, it is a huge challenge to build modern urban transportation systems in the Old World. I remember one of the metro stations in Athens has a wall made of glass and behind it you can see the veritable shitloads of pottery fragments and other artifacts still in the earth in that area.
But still, that's incredibly cool about Theodosius.
Posted by: M/tch M/lls at July 25, 2006 05:33 PMin my backyard this week:
Remains of the Day
More than a dozen Indian burials have been discovered during light-rail construction
By Megan Irwin
Article Published Jul 20, 2006
Let's hope that this archaelogical work - by the Turks with respect to Byzantine ruins - dosen't somehow end up rubbing the Greeks the wrong way. Even though most of the archaeology in Turkey relates to Byzantine and older Greek/Macedonian ruins, I imagine the Greeks still carry the loss of Constaninople around with them.
Posted by: PutzheadTom at July 27, 2006 03:03 AMI imagine the Greeks still carry the loss of Constaninople around with them
I went to Ephesus with a Greek woman. Ephesus is an amazing site - the Ephesians just up and left it "as is" due to the silting in of the river mouth and moved upstream. (That was the gist of Paul's letter to them, btw - "YOU LIVE IN A DESERT! MOVE TO WHERE THE FOOD IS!!!) Anyway, in the absence of sacking, pillaging, looting, natural disasters etc the degree of preservation is phenomenal, and consequently, it's popular as a tourist site. So when you get there, you must run the gauntlet of rug merchants and hard selling guys hawking leather coats in order to get to the site. Once there, the place is being heavily developed and all she could talk about was how badly they were fucking it up by building condos right on top of Celsus' Library.
Of course, it's not the archaeology, it's the subjugation. Funny how a little occupation goes a long way to generating generations of cultural hostility.
Posted by: shpx.ohfu at July 27, 2006 08:41 AMYes, America is young.
I recall visiting Winchester cathedral in England and seeing the tombs from the 1600s and thinking that was old.
Posted by: Tripp at July 31, 2006 02:41 PM