Çatalhöyük 2001 Archive Report

ÇATALHÖYÜK 2001 ARCHIVE REPORT

Archaeological Illustration 2001

Arkeolojik İlustrasyon 2001

John-Gordon Swogger

Abstract

This season, work was divided up between the excavation season and the study season. In the excavation season, illustration work included the completion of reconstructions of the new structures excavated on the West Mound and the Team Poznan trench. During the study season, work focused on bringing together the interpretations generated during the six weeks of discussion into new images. Finds illustration and photography this season was dedicated to illustrations needed for the upcoming publications.

Post-excavation work in 2001 will concentrate on illustrations for the upcoming volumes. These will include a usual mixture of finds illustrations, skeleton plans and reconstructions. However, it is hoped that many of these illustrations will represent the archaeology in a new way, challenging old assumptions about the role of archaeological illustration in the presentation and publication of a site's reports.

Özet

Bu senenin çalışmaları kazı sezonu ve araştırma sezonu arasında bölünmüştür. Kazı sezonunun ilustrasyon çalışmaları, Batı Höyük ve TP alanından ele geçn yeni yapıların rekonstriksiyonu olmuştur. Araştırma mevsiminde çalışmalar, altı hafta boyunca yapılan tartışmaların sonunda ortaya çıkan yeni yorumları çizime dökme üzerinde yoğunlaşmıştır. Bu sezonun buluntu çizimleri ve fotoğraf kayıtları, yayımlanacak ciltlerde kullanılacak buluntular üzerinde yoğunlaşmıştır.

2001 mevsiminin kazı sonrası çalışmaları, çıkacak yeni yayımların çizimleri üzerinde yoğunlaşacaktır. Bu çizimlerin içinde, temel buluntu çizimleri, iskelet planları ve rekonstriksiyonları yer almaktadır. Bu çizimlerin arkeolojiyi değişik ve yeni bir bakış açısıyla temsil etmesi ümit edilerek, bir kazı raporunda arkeolojik ilustrasyonun yeri hakkında eski düşüncelere meydan okunmaktadır.

Archaeological illustration

Finds Illustration and photography

Artefact illustration this season focused on the drawing of objects needed for the various specialist reports in the upcoming volumes. Some 700 objects from previous seasons' excavations on the East mound have now been illustrated, producing a solid catalogue of drawn material for publication as well as for archive purposes. These illustrations will form the core of an online reference collection of drawings to be included as part of the illustration website. Finds photographs from this season and previous seasons bring the total archive of artefact images to well over a thousand.

Photography work for next season will continue the project to produce a definitive photography database for the Project, amalgamating photographs from the Cambridge/Stanford excavations, the BACH excavations and the Poznan excavations into a single, searchable archive.

Reconstruction Illustrations

Access this season to the Project's digital tablet meant an increased use of the digital environment as a distinct media for the production of reconstruction illustrations (Figure 45). This has allowed the production of publication quality colour images for use on - and off - site. The availability of the tablet also enabled renders from modelling software to be used as the basis for reconstructions (Figure 46).

A total of one hundred and ninety new reconstruction images were produced this season, covering both the excavation and study seasons. Work from the excavation seasons included reconstructions illustrating the different late period features and structures in the Team Poznan trench, as well as a series of CGI models illustrating the construction and use stages of the Byzantine 'tomb' from the West Mound (Figure 47). The reconstruction of the late period structure in the Team Poznan trench - a pottery workshop and storage facility - was extremely useful as a basis for reconstructing the apparently extensive use of the mound as a highly visible industrial zone during that period. The reconstruction of the Byzantine tomb on the West Mound also helped to focus discussion on the question of visible monuments during that period. Other illustrations produced during the season included reconstructions based on Jim Vedder's experimental research into the manufacture of obsidian mirrors (Figure 48).

Reconstructions done during the study season concentrated on trying to bring together the multitude of varied interpretative strands that wound their way through the seasons' discussions. Some of these reconstructions focused on creating images based on particular and specific data, for example the series of environmental reconstructions showing the Catalhoyuk settlement and its immediate environs during a year's seasonal changes (Frontispiece, Figure 49). Others tried to draw out of a complex web of data, interpretation and discussions depictions of Neolithic activities and experiences (Figure 50). In Figure 50, we have such a reconstruction: an attempt to illustrate the movement of people and animals across the wider landscape of the Konya plain as well as some of the social and cultural mores and resource-relationships that may have governed or arisen from such movement.

Some other images that came from the study season discussions were less pictorial and more abstract, based on some of thematic explorations of subjects such as 'gender', 'domestication' or 'memory' (Figure 51). How these images will be used in the upcoming volumes has yet to be concluded, but they represent the result of an interesting and useful exercise in utilising visual representations to give voice to ideas and concepts in new ways. Connected to this is the final class of images produced during the season for inclusion in the upcoming volumes. These are vignettes of daily life both here and in the surrounding villages to be used as 'marginals' in the discussion of the various relationships between the Catalhoyuk Project and its social and cultural environment. Although usually absent from modern archaeological publications, these kinds of images have in previous centuries formed an important part of the illustrative record of archaeology and archaeologists' wider context.

Thanks to Sarah Cross and Anja Wolle for helping to expand the usefulness of the illustration database. With their help, I was able to conduct some interesting analysis on the data, for example, counting the number of reconstructions according to subject matter. This has helped identify thematic trends and biases as well as gaps within the reconstruction portfolio (Table 18).

Topic, theme, subject	No. of reconstructions
Children	8
Animals	27
Clayballs	2
Plants	6
Storage	6
Environment	30
Wetlands	15

Table 18: Thematic trends in illustration

Turning through time

This season also saw the involvement of Dr. Adrienne Momi, who came to the site to produce a piece of temporary landscape art. This spiral of paper - "Turning Through Time" - was intended to be a description of the connection between the past and the present, and a representation of the hermeneutics of archaeological knowledge-creation at Catalhoyuk. The installation was interactive, involving the viewer in a participatory experience that communicated the limited sense of its totality as a parallel for the limited sense of totality of archaeological discovery. Although the installation was temporary, its memory lingers on. (Figure 52, Figure 53) I found Adrienne's contribution to the visual exploration of Catalhoyuk highly engaging, giving, I feel, a much needed alternative viewpoint to the existing two-dimensional photographic and illustrative repertoire of representations of the site - something that would benefit from further exploration.

2001 Post-ex

Although the field season has come to an end, the illustration work for this year has not. I will be working on illustrations for the upcoming volumes throughout the remainder of this year, drawing on work done over the past four years. These illustrations will include burial reconstructions, phased reconstructions of buildings and spaces, artefact illustrations, charts, diagrams and a variety of other images.

The Catalhoyuk Online Image Archive website continues to attract attention and repay time and effort spent in design and construction. The journalists who came to the site all mentioned the usefulness of it as both a point of contact and as a research resource. The reconstructions from this season along with their accompanying commentary will be posted at the end of September, and I will continue to update the site throughout the year.

And finally...

I perhaps shouldn't forget to mention the last component of the illustration work done on site: tee-shirts, posters and other stuff. Although these illustrations may seem trivial, they play an important role in communicating Project members' connection to Catalhoyuk when not actually on-site. They are an often-overlooked component of the visual presentation of the site.

Conclusions

The archaeological illustration work at Catalhoyuk is increasingly not just about recording artefacts or reconstructing excavated buildings, but about creating an site archive of images that document the archaeological process as much as the archaeological remains. Finds illustrations, phased building reconstructions, body reconstructions, art installations and tee-shirt designs all have a place in such an archive. As the years go by, this archive is being asked to serve several different audiences: journalists writing about the site, visitors planning trips to the site, and archaeologists working at the site. This archive - particularly the online component - already provides an important point of contact between the Project and the outside world, a useful research and reference resource, and a significant document of the site's archaeological and interpretative history.

Figures

Figure 45: Reconstruction drawing of the houses excavated on the West Mound in 2000

Figure 46: House exterior reconstruction using modelling software

Figure 47: Reconstruction of a Byzantine 'tomb' excavated n the West Mound in 2001

Figure 48: Grinding an obsidian mirror

Figure 49: Environmental Reconstruction: Summer

Figure 50: The gathering

Figure 51: Memory

Figure 52: Spiral Installation by Adrienne Momi on the southern slope of the East Mound

Figure 53: Spiral installation: Detail