ÇATALHÖYÜK 2000 ARCHIVE REPORT

Archaeological Illustration

Arkeolojik İlustrasyon

John-Gordon Swogger

Abstract

As with previous years, both finds and reconstruction illustrations were drawn this season. Half of the finds illustrations produced were of material to be published in the upcoming volume. The remainder was primarily of Envanter material selected for storage in Konya Museum. A new approach to prioritising Envanter illustrations now means that time in the field can be better allocated. Some of the reconstructions this season were of spaces and areas excavated in previous seasons, while the remainder were based on current excavations. A wide range of media were used, from pen and ink to Quick Time virtual reality models.

Özeti

Önceki sezonlarda olduğu gibi bu mevsimde de hem buluntu hem de rekonsrtiksiyon çizimleri yapılmıştır. Çizilen malzemenin yarısı basılacak olan yeni yayında yayımlanacak malzemeden oluşmuştur. Geriye kalan çizimler, Konya Müzesi’nin envanteri için yapılmıştır. Bu sene yapılan rekonstriksiyonların bazıları daha önceki sezonlarda kazılmış olan alanları tasvir ederken, geri kalanı bu mevsim gerçekleşen kazılar sonucunda açığa çıkarılan alanları tasvir etmektedir. Quick Time sanal gerçeklik modellerinden mürekkebe kadar her türlü çizim malzemesi kullanılmıştır.

Finds Illustrations

Summary

Illustrations were produced of one hundred and thirty three objects from the season’s excavations, and for those of you interested in tables and numbers, the breakdown was as follows:

The breakdown is useful because it makes an interesting point: that almost exactly half of illustrations done (50.3%, to be precise) were of material from the South area, not under excavation this season, indicating that these were illustrations done for publication in the upcoming volumes. It should also be mentioned here that around 1,300 finds photographs were also taken this season. These numbers combined indicates that we are now creating a sizeable archive of artefact images for research, publication and presentation purposes.

Envanter Material

One of the primary reasons I was first asked to do illustration work at Çatalhöyük was to continue to provide a record of material which was being taken for storage in Konya Museum. At that time, it was very much the case that access to the Museum’s collections was difficult and time-consuming to arrange, and that for all intents and purposes, once material had gone to Konya museum it was no longer available for study or reference. In 1998 and 1999, therefore, my objective was to produce illustrations of every single piece that went to the Museum.

I believe now, however, that overtures made to the Museum by the Project may greatly change our relationship with the Museum and its collections. The efforts made this season towards creating an atmosphere in which access to material stored there is easier and less time-consuming to organise means, I believe, that the days of regarding material sent to Konya Museum as wholly inaccessible may well be over. From the point of view of illustration, this would be an extremely welcome development. Many of the illustrations done in previous years were produced solely because the artefact in question was destined for the Museum’s collections. As a result, there was little time available to illustrate any material remaining in the Finds Room. This has had the effect of creating an archive of illustrations which is highly mis-representative of the material remains excavated by the Project. While the need to provide a comprehensive record of material stored outside on-site facilities is obviously paramount, it also behoves us to look at the illustration archive as a whole and judge how best to ensure its usefulness to the Project.

Therefore, I do not believe that the Project is well-served by a finds illustration archive that simply (and blindly) records objects destined for storage off-site. I believe that in order to ensure the creation of a useful and representative I must prioritise Envanter material according to which objects are best recorded by illustration, and which objects are best recorded by digital photograph. Illustrating only those Envanter objects which require illustration (rather than illustrating them simply because they are on the Envanter list), should free up time for illustrating other material.

The advantages of this approach can be seen with the aid of a little more number crunching. In 1998, 97% of the illustrations produced were of Envanter objects; in 2000, this percentage was reduced to only 31%. In both seasons, the Envanter material was fully recorded, although this year, prioritisation meant that much more time was available to illustrate material whose selection has been made based on very different criteria. I believe this approach is not only far more useful to the Project, it is also far more realistic, making, as it does, far better use of my limited field time.

Reconstructions

Summary

In 1998 and 1999, the focus of my reconstruction illustrations were the spaces under excavation during those seasons. This year, the focus of my reconstructions was primarily the gathering together of new interpretations in preparation for returning to my ’98 and ’99 subjects. These reconstructions evolved principally from conversations and communications with the various specialist and excavation teams engaged in the final stages of data analysis. I also did a small amount of reconstruction work on new structural data from the BACH area and West Mound excavations, and continued work on a number of other aspects of archaeological reconstruction. All in all, some thirty-odd new reconstructions were produced in a variety of media, including using QuickTime Virtual Reality (QTVR) and time-lapse computer animation.

Revisiting CH98 and CH99

As many of the team members this season were working on material from previous seasons’ work, I was presented with an opportunity to return to some of the interpretations floated in those years and re-examine some of them in new reconstructions. Choosing which of these "stories" to illustrate was not easy, and if more time had been available I would have illustrated many more. However, I did try to select stories which seemed most representative of the broader interpretative scope. Because of the existing time-constraint, I ended up concentrating on reconstructions that were examples of consensus of interpretative opinion rather than work with conflicting points of view. I am hoping however, that the 2000 study season will allow me the opportunity to do more of the latter.

My first return visit was to the Kopal excavations of 1999. Although I spent a great deal of time discussing a number of aspects of various interpretations, I decided to concentrate on the ‘overall picture’ rather than any one of the many specific stories being told. Some of the more curious and unusual aspects of the area were left untouched, then, in favour of a broader brushstroke approach to the data (E. 875; Figure 43). The second return was to the subject of the larger-scale environment around the site and the Çatalhöyük’s landscape context. I produced three reconstructions on this subject. The first, a plan view of the site, was an attempt to relate the form of the settlement to the presence of the river and the surrounding plain (E. 884). The second was a ground-level view (E. 873), and the third built on those first two reconstructions and the conversations and discussion that came from them. As a result, it includes more sharply focused environmental and structural interpretations (E. 901; Figure 44). My third stop was back at Building 5. In the course of helping out with putting together new interpretation boards for the new Building 5 shelter, I produced a number of small, diagrammatic reconstructions to explain various terms and ideas within the interpretation board text (E. 874; Figure 45). We all too often forget that words like platform and bin have very different meanings in the world beyond Çatalhöyük. Visitors to the site are often left confused by our use of these terms, but small explanatory illustrations can help to explain Çatalhöyük terminology to them. In some cases they can make the difference between a comprehensible and an incomprehensible interpretation board.

Narrating interpretations

One of the most enjoyable aspects of doing reconstruction illustration on-site is the opportunity to pull together vague thoughts and interpretations from team members into a more tangible format. At any time there are hundreds of these interpretative "stories" floating around the site - in the labs, on the veranda, in the dining room, or around the campfire. All archaeologists are familiar with such stories, but they are interpretations so fleeting that it is difficult to record them. Illustration can act as an interpreter for these stories, translating the ephemeral narrative of verbal interpretation and capturing it in the form of an image (E. 891; Figure 46).

So just as the fragmented archaeological conversations in labs and around the bar are proving-grounds for interpretations, so too are these reconstructions. They are photographs of suggestions - snapshots of ideas. I produced a number of reconstructions of this type, their purpose lying in their ability to record the process of creating archaeological knowledge. The reconstructions tell a range of stories from the domestication of animals to the use of wall-niches, from the role of dogs to the use of hackberries. I always take great delight in producing these kinds of reconstructions, and look forward to doing many more during the 2001 study season.

BACH Area and West Mound reconstructions

The two areas under excavation during the 2000 season were also the subject of reconstruction illustrations. The so-called "screen wall" in the BACH area - already fertile ground for interpretation and illustration - proved yet again a strong subject for reconstruction. I created two sequences of reconstructions for this feature. The first was a series of four phased reconstructions (E. 878 - E. 881) showing the evolution of the feature throughout the life of the house, and the second was a time-lapse computer animation also showing this evolution (E. 883) based on a 3-D Bryce model (E. 882; Figure 47). Ironically, as a result of this work, ideas about the development of this particular feature were dramatically changed, making these reconstructions obsolete within days - and demonstrating the ability of reconstruction rendering to help focus the interpretative process.

The new and unusual structural elements of the rooms excavated on the West Mound also provided scope for reconstruction illustrations. Although interpretations concerning the use and nature of these rooms will certainly change as more excavation is undertaken, at least one room lent itself to illustration showing the reconstruction of various structural features (E. 887).

Presentation

It was brought to my attention during the course of the season that the website I posted in December 1999 as an archive for illustrations and reconstructions was becoming a major port of call for journalists and other researchers interested in Çatalhöyük. With this in mind, I have undertaken a complete site redesign, streamlining links and improving usability. All new reconstruction illustrations are being posted there, along with reconstructions in other media, such as QTVR. It is my hope that this site will continue to be used as a point of contact between the Project and the public.

As Çatalhöyük continues to attract increasing media attention, it is also my hope that I will be able to devote time to turning these reconstructions into a "package" to meet the specialised demands of such public presentation. Such a package would include such things as large-scale colour images suitable for magazine reproduction and full-length computer animations for use in video and television presentation.

Figures

Figure 43: Reconstruction of the Kopal area excavations from 1999. The scene depicts winnowing, large-scale chaff burning and marl-digging at the edge of the site. (E.875) Pen, ink & digital colour

Figure 44: Aerial view of Neolithic Çatalhöyük, Sept. 2000. The scene depicts the site sometime in the spring. (E.901) Pen, ink & digital colour

Figure 45: Diagrammatic reconstruction of the location and nature of burials within a Neolithic building, produced for the new Building 5 interpretation boards. (E. 874) Pen, ink and digital colour.

Figure 46: Animal penning at the edge of the site. This reconstruction plays with ideas about the nature of the site-edge, and various interpretations concerning the nature of herd animals such as sheep/goat (E. 891) Pen, ink & digital colour.

Figure 47: Computer-generated rough-draft model of space 86 and the "screen wall" (E. 882) Rendered Bryce4 model