Friends, Rhomaioi, Countrymen

After a long hiatus, I'm able to post again. To be brief, I've spent the last month on the second year of the Avkat Archaeological Survey in Turkey. This year I led a team of field walkers and learned how to use a PDA and GPS unit (sort of). Learning to drive a stick shift in rural Turkey was probably more challenging than any technological marvel I had to use, and I really enjoy driving a stick now. It will take a while to get used to an automatic again. I visited the same areas as last year, although I can now add Chorum and Alacahoeyoek (a Hittite site) to the list. Currently I'm in Amasya, my favorite city in Turkey and birthplace of the geographer Strabo.

In the next few days I will travel to Ankara and then catch a train eastward to Kars. From Kars I will venture to Ani, a medieval Armenian city, now deserted, once known as the "City of 1,001 Churches." I also plan to visit the various Georgian, Selcuk, Byzantine, Roman, and Ottoman monuments in the vicinity of Kars. From Kars, I will then take a bus south to Lake Van. On an island in Lake Van is a spectacular tenth-century Armenian church named Akdamar. I will visit Akdamar and other monuments in the Lake Van region (and maybe swim in this alpine lake as well). From Van I fly back to Ankara, and from Ankara by a series of connections back to Reno, Nevada. This will be a long and difficult journey, as I know only a little Turkish. But I really want to see eastern Turkey. I will post photos to my Picassa web albums so that you, gentle reader, may look at some of these amazing sites. Once I get back to the States I plan to create a more comprehensive account of my travels with photos where needed.

I apologize for the delays between entries, and I will make up for my long silence with a slew of posts in the coming weeks.