Stuart Eve

Stuart is currently completing doctoral research at University College London, investigating the possibilities of new computer techniques for exploring past experience. He is particularly interested in ancient frontiers and barriers within the landscape. As well as studying, Stuart is a director of L-P: Archaeology, a commercial archaeological firm undertaking developer-led projects throughout the UK. He sits on the Council of the Institute of Field Archaeologists and is heavily involved in the development of digital systems to aid in the recording of archaeological excavations.

Dr Anna Collar

Anna is currently working part time in Cambridge at the Ancient India and Iran Trust, a charitable organisation and library providing a meeting place for scholars and members of the public interested in the archaeology and cultures of ancient India and Iran. She graduated from the University of Exeter with a PhD in Ancient History, completing her thesis on religious transmission in the Roman world. She is currently writing this up for publication with Cambridge University Press. She has worked as a professional archaeologist in the UK, Crete and Turkey, and has been digging the site of the temple of Jupiter Dolichenus at Gaziantep in Turkey with the Universität Münster for the last five years.

The car

The 'Slo Rida' is a 2002 Suzuki Swift GLS. Billed on eBay as 'Every teenager's dream'. With lowered suspension, 15in alloy wheels, an exhaust pipe bigger than the diameter of a grapefruit and a massive 893cc engine, she is sure to get the team to Mongolia in one piece (!). When the team arrive at the finish line the car will be donated to a lucky local!

Why 'Indiana Jones and the Last Saker Falcon'?

The Mongol Rally isn't just about adventure; it's also about raising money for charity.

The Saker Falcon is endemic to the steppe region with a range from Eastern Europe (it is the national bird of Hungary) to Mongolia. Sadly the Saker Falcon is listed as Globally Endangered. Funds raised by the 'Last Saker Falcon' team will contribute towards the conservation of this any many other endangered bird species supported by the charity BirdLife International.

The team are also raising money for The Christina Noble Children's Foundation which funds the Blue Skies Ger Village project in Mongolia to provide help and housing for homeless and abandoned children.

The team are hoping to raise £10,000 for charity. If you would like to sponsor the team you can donate online.

Websites

• • mongolrally.theadventurists.com/index.php Mongol Rally homepage

• • mongolrally10.theadventurists.com/index.php?mode=teamwebsites&name=indiana-jones-and-the-last-saker-falcon&page=welcome Indiana Jones and the Last Saker Falcon homepage

• • mongolrally10.theadventurists.com/index.php?mode=teamwebsites&name=indiana-jones-and-the-last-saker-falcon&page=charities Indiana Jones and the Last Saker Falcon donations

• • mongolrally10.theadventurists.com/index.php?mode=teamwebsites&name=indiana-jones-and-the-last-saker-falcon&page=route Mongol Rally routemap

Borders and frontiers

Sitting in a thunderstorm at the border between Serbia and Kosovo seemed like an apt moment and place to record our thoughts on the first week's archaeology for this blog. Borders and frontiers have played a big part in our journey from the south coast of the UK to here. We began with the sea defences of England — the names of kings etched into suburban cul-de-sacs in Hastings, the Norman castles and pillboxes from the second world war. The natural border of the Channel is now crossed so easily we barely had time to bid our farewell to the chalk hills of Folkestone before we were whisked away to the flat, endless battlefields of Flanders.

Likewise the old, impenetrable Iron Curtain between east and west Germany — now marked, on the autobahns at least, by a small brown sign, and nothing more. In fact, all the borders from Belgium to Hungary are crossed without a second glance — Europe is truly 'open'. The pockmarked concrete buildings mark when they were once not so easily traversed. There are differences between one side and another, of course — languages, currencies (sometimes) change, but architectural styles, economies, and goods on sale are different too — between Germany and the Czech Republic this was particularly stark: we crossed the border from a tiny, upright, one-horse German village, and suddenly on the Czech side there were large tax free shops, and craft stores selling wooden bird tables, sheepskins, football shirts — run by a Chinese family. A lone woman standing by a run-down discotheque reminded us that there were other kinds of trade happening too.

A vist to Melk, Austria.

The abbey church at Melk

We came along the Danube, in the most part — a natural frontier and the German limes of Rome. A stop in Melk Abbey was inspired by Umberto Eco's 'The Name of the Rose', and although it was an extremely important monastery in the medieval period, the promontory where it stands had previously held a Roman watchtower, guarding the island in the river below. The medieval monastery buildings have long gone — the whole complex completely rebuilt in yellow and gold by baroque architect Jakob Prandtauer, under the direction of the abbot, Berthold Dietmayr, completed in under 40 years in 1745. It's a fortress as much as a monastery, and a palace as much as a fortress.

Downriver in Carnuntum, there were no fortifications necessary, as the Danube creates such a huge natural break in the landscape, eroding the surrounding land to a height of c. 40m in places. The Roman camp was first established as a military base in AD 6, for an offensive by Tiberias against the ever troublesome Marcomanni, and by AD 107, Carnuntum was capital of the province of Pannonia Superior. Hadrian made the settlement a municipium c. AD 124, and its position at the crossroads of two important Central European trade routes increased the wealth and size of the civilian city that had grown up next to the military camp.

Today the site of Carnuntum is divided between two small villages, Petronell-Carnuntum (site of the civilian city) and Bad Deutsch-Altenburg (the area of the legionary fortress defending the bridge across the Danube). In terms of visible archaeology, two amphitheatres and a number of houses have been excavated and are on display, as well as the Heidentor (a late antique triumphal arch, built during the reign of Constantius II) in some fields outside the town.

There are also some impressive reconstructions of houses for the visitor to wander through, and experience a 'Roman' atmosphere. Events throughout the year allow the park to boast that at Carnuntum, 'Rom Lebt'. The reconstructions themselves are clearly controversial, for the most part built directly on to the original Roman foundations, and the bath buildings, currently in progress, are being constructed on half a metre of standing architecture. The quality of the buildings, from the hypocausts (that work, apparently to heat the floors of the dining rooms for cold nights of feasting) to the roof tiles, manufactured to exact Roman proportions by local tile factories, show that no expense has been spared. There are even bowls of fresh fruit on the tables in almost every room — but doubt remains over the accuracy of the archaeological information represented. The case particularly in point is the Temple of Diana on the North Street — which on the outside follows the plan made by the excavators, but on the inside is merely a reception room to the grand Peristyle House, furnished with what appears to be a writing desk and the inevitable bowl of pears. The liberal distribution of fruit, baskets of cabbages, and bowls of garlic and herbs is no doubt intended to add a realistic quality and a 'lived-in' feel, however, it seems incongruous, and doesn't appear to have much of a relationship to the original use of the rooms. The archaeologists we spoke to hate the reconstructions, of course - but in this case, governmental funding and the desire to create a stunning tourist attraction has overtaken the archaeologist's concerns.

Archaeologists at work in advance of reconstruction.

Carnutum kitchen reconstruction.

Our border crossing from Serbia to Kosovo took us over 5 hours in total — three and a half of which was sitting in a long line of stationary traffic, watching diplomatic vehicles and huge trucks taking supplies over the border (it seems most food is produced in Serbia) growl up the hill past us. The roadside was thick with Red Bull cans, soft drink bottles, and other plastic detritus thrown from the cars as they wait. Without being overly whimsical, it makes one wonder how archaeologists in the future will interpret this modern frontier — will they use the energy drink equivalent of a fresh pear to try to recreate the atmosphere of the crossing?

'Thalassa, Thalassa!'

As we finally descend from the high, blasted central Anatolian steppeland into the lush green valleys along the Black Sea coast, we understand the joyous cries of Xenophon's army after weeks on the march. It hasn't been quite so long for us, but we've travelled the length and breadth of Turkey to visit a few amazing sites and projects. We've seen the beaches and plains of Troy, mountaintop cities in Pisidia and Lycia, the verdant yayla (summer pastures) with cool running streams, and the dusty expanse of the Konya plain.

The mosaic-floored baptistry at Stobi.

The week began with a brief stop in Skopje, Macedonia, to have a chat with Carolyn Snively (Gettysburg) and her team, who have just finished their season at Golemo Gradisti. Unfortunately, we couldn't see the site itself, which is in the vicinity of Kumanovo, some hour and a half from Skopje, but they are investigating urbanisation and decay in the late antique/early Byzantine period. The recession has hit the project hard, with the funds promised by the Macedonian government failing to materialise, although apparently Macedonia has not been hit so hard as Greece. We did stop at Carolyn's old project, Stobi, a city of Hellenistic foundation that was at its height in the Roman Empire. The town is dominated by the various churches, and boasts an extraordinary mosaic floored baptistry of fifth/sixth century, and a large and important synagogue building. Much of the site is roped off at the moment, suggesting it is in the process of restoration, but we didn't see anyone to talk to about this, as it was the Day of the Republic, a national holiday celebrating a failed uprising against the Ottomans. This fierce national pride is matched by the massive Macedonian flag that flies over Stobi (and everywhere else). Ownership of heritage clearly forms a large part of the nation's identity, and nowhere more so than in the figure of Alexander the Great. His name is everywhere — hotels, airports, shops, restaurants — and of course, the same is true over the border in Greek Macedonia.

Our journey was sadly swift through northern Greece — we were too short of time to linger over the tombs of the Macedonian kings, and we had to hurry on past the battlefields of Gallipoli, across the Hellespont, to the site of another war — Troy. The site is incredible, Schliemann's enthusiasm and destruction matched by the size of the fortress. The site is presented extremely well, leading the visitor on a journey through the complex levels and phases of the city, before one has the opportunity to clamber inside a large wooden horse and play Odysseus. Unfortunately we were somewhat rebuffed by the archaeologists working there this season (although admittedly it was dinner time!) so all we can report is that it is a slow season with a single trench open, which is 'in the Bronze Age'.

The walls at Troy.

Digital tomography at Catilar.

Not disheartened, we set off the next day on an epic journey south to the survey project run by Nicoletta Momigliano and Tamar Hodos from Bristol, Alan Greaves from Liverpool, and Belgin Aksoy at Bursa, at the upland pasture site of Çaltilar. Situated in the middle of a lush green valley, the modern village is normally only populated in the summer, when people need to escape the stifling heat of Antalya. The höyük of Çaltilar perhaps is a remnant of the same process, the survey has found huge quantities of Iron Age ceramic, but it seems there is occupation back into the Neolithic. However, there are tantalising hints from the pottery that the site was not simply an upland village — fragments of sherd from Euboea and elsewhere suggest that in fact, the town was on a major trade route in antiquity. They also want to understand more about why the site was abandoned; it may have something to do with the Persians, who occupied the area in the sixth century BC. The team hope to begin excavation next year, permits permitting, and aim to answer these questions — so watch this space. The Çaltilar team has also managed to find an internet connection in the high yayla and so are regularly tweeting their progress (search for 'Caltilar_Tweets' on Twitter for updates).

It may be that at the time the upland höyük was abandoned, the people moved to the mountains and founded the great Classical cities in the hills. One of these, Oinoanda, not far from Çaltilar, has Hellenistic period levels, but nothing earlier — as yet. The site, having long been under a British aegis, is now run by a team from all over Germany and Austria. They are concentrating on the epigraphy and architecture — and there is much of both. We made the very long trek up the steep, thorny mountainside to the ruins of the city (at c. 1500m) and were amazed at what remains — the Hellenistic city wall, built in polygonal style to resist earthquakes, is still standing to a height of about 10m, and the rest of the town is still clearly laid out — even the arches of the baths are still completely extant. It's an extraordinary place, and you can't help but wonder what drove these people to build such perfect Classical cities in such inhospitable places (the snow falls heavy on the Turkish mountains).

Exposed and conserved masonry at Sagalassos.

Reconstruction work at Sagalassos.

Belgian-run Sagalassos is the same — an eagle's nest city clutching at the hillside. Alexander's mark is here too — he conquered the city on his way through Asia — but the impressive remains are largely late Roman and early Byzantine. There's a great deal of reconstruction going on too — in part to protect the ruins from the ravages of exposure at such altitude. The full tour includes a wonderful theatre, preserved just as it collapsed, nymphaea, two agorae, bath-houses, a temple to Apollo, a heroon, and a fine late antique house — subdivided as the population contracted in the sixth century AD. The town gradually became more and more rural, until it seems the people moved down the hill to modern Aglasun — a small village with a 1000 year old plane tree at its heart.

Ongoing excavations at Çatal Höyük.

Bucrania at Çatal Höyük.

Our final site visits were to the well known Çatal Höyük, and the more recently discovered Boncuklu Höyük — deep in central Anatolia, on the Konya plain. The same themes of urbanisation and transition came up again — Boncuklu Höyük is an aceramic Neolithic site that predates Çatal by about 900 years, run by Doug Baird from Liverpool, and features semi-subterranean circular houses, with collective midden areas. Baird suggests that, because the environment was very different at this time (wetland), there were people still living a semi-nomadic life, and perhaps the record at Boncuklu is of seasonal occupation. Not the case at nearby Çatal, which is a melange of cheek-by-jowl roof-entry Neolithic houses, carefully cleared and destroyed before the new one was built in its place. The tour given to us by Shahina Farid of UCL was fantastic, and it was great to see so many teams from across the world working together at this world-famous site. The final layers at Çatal are Chalcolithic — before the people moved across the river Çarsamba and began afresh on the opposite bank. For a town so concerned with ancestry (all the houses have burials under the floors — one house had 67 individuals in a single layer…) the question must be asked as to why the settlement moved at this time of material transition. The two teams at Boncuklu and Çatal work closely together, with many ex-Çatal staff now at Boncuklu, hopefully they will piece together even more about the transition to settled life in central Anatolia, and the reasons and rituals involved.

Douglas Baird gives us a tour of Boncuklu Höyük.

When we finally arrived in Ankara the British Institute (BIAA) generously gave us a bit of space and time to relax and reflect on the sites we had visited. The team from the survey at Avkat (Trent University) were also staying at the BIAA, fresh in from their study season. The team have locked themselves away for two weeks with the aim of producing the full text of the monograph — hopefully ready by the end of year. We spent an enjoyable evening with the team, and it seems a very close-knit, efficient project, we look forward to hearing more about their results next year.

We spent a relatively long time in Turkey, but the country is so massive and there is so much to see that it has felt like a disservice to rush through it. As we drove on north towards the Black Sea and east toward Mongolia we reflected on the many major sites and projects that we have been forced to miss (Aphrodisias, Ephesus, Hierapolis, Pergamon, Hattusa… the list is endless). We'll be back.

Across the Caucasus

Passing across the border from Turkey's semi-tropical, tea-planted Black Sea coast into Georgia we were greeted immediately by a huge white cross stationed on the hillside, and a man getting into the queue for passport control crossing himself feverishly. The Caucasus is a fiercely religious area — perhaps all the more so now since the declaration of independence from the Soviet Union in 1991.

We stayed our first night with the Pichvnari team (run by Michael Vickers from Oxford and Amiran and Emzar Kakhidze of Batumi Museum), just north of Kobuleti, on the Georgian coast. The atmosphere is thick and sultry — the area south of Kobuleti was the wettest place in the Soviet Union — as the huge delta of the rivers Kintrishi and Chakvistskali empties into the Black Sea. Kobuleti is a steaming hellpit of clubs, bars and traffic jams — as the Georgians, Armenians and Azeris unwind for their summer break — and is very different from the Black Sea coast of Turkey, where such decadence has not yet taken hold. It is, however, strangely suitable for the exotic land of the Golden Fleece where soldiers sprang fully armed from dragon's teeth sown into the ground, and the sun-god's grandchild, Medea, should enchant and destroy in the name of love.

Pichnvari excavations (photograph courtesy of Michael Vickers).

The site at Pichnvari.

Pichvnari itself avoids the noise and the fumes, and is a tranquil site, set back amongst the bracken, brambles and walnut of the sandy coast, where the main disturbance is the sound of the frogs. Originally a Colchian settlement on the river, it was then also colonised by Greeks from Miletus. It has been being excavated for about 50 years, and the current configuration of the team have been there for 13 years. The site is largely a cemetery — with over 400 graves that belong to the Colchian settlement, and another 450 from the Greek area (and only 10% estimated to have been excavated). The students have been working this year in the Greek cemetery, dating to the second quarter of the fifth century BC, excavating graves without bodies: the soil dissolves all the bones except the teeth. The real treasures here are the ceramics — with many rich finds of Classical Athenian pots — including a krater by the Niobid painter. These artefacts are largely in the Batumi Museum. This season the team also identified the Roman period cemetery nearby, but this is the end of the British-Georgian collaboration — and next year will see the start of work by a team from Krakow. We celebrated the end of the fruitful partnership the following morning, with a traditional Georgian breakfast of 60% proof 'chacha', some suckling pig and fried fish… at 8am.

Following breakfast, we wobbled on east to Vani — the ancient Colchian city of fabulous wealth that has revealed an astonishing array of gold and bronze artefacts (recently taken on a world tour, but now back in the National Museum of Georgia in Tbilisi) and which perhaps gave rise to the legend of 'Colchis, rich in gold'. Marketed as the 'Pompeii of Georgia' the site is actually quite hard to find with few signs. The museum building has an unmarked, locked gate, but luckily we met a local Georgian archaeology student who let us in. Greeted by the museum director with a plate of fresh melon, the museum itself has some good (if dated) displays of some of the gold objects, and Greek terracottas. The museum is placed at the base of the hill on which the ancient city is situated, and the only route to see the site is via a precarious rusting suspension bridge (very like something out of Indiana Jones!). The site was disappointing, there was no kind of interpretation, the excavated remains poking out of the grass were poorly conserved and goats, dogs, children and cows were running amok — next to 3m sections with no fencing. There appeared to be modern houses in amongst the ruins, and rubbish was scattered everywhere. Beyond the very obvious remains (baths, house platforms, etc.) it was very difficult to tell what you were looking at and we left feeling slightly glum that such a potential jewel in Georgia's crown was not being properly looked after.

We had that feeling throughout our journey through Georgia, Tblisi is a vibrant, thriving capital city with beautiful old buildings, vast modern monuments and fountains, skyscrapers and even a mini Eiffel Tower lighting up the night sky (apparently the President went to Paris and was so enamoured with the lights of the Eiffel Tower he simply had to have one himself). Yet in the villages we drove through (over unmaintained potholed roads — the worst so far) the evidence of the old Soviet regime in Stalin's home country is still very obvious. Huge factories stand deserted and crumbling, schools and hospitals are left to rot in the landscape and bridges that were clearly in progress during 1989 are unfinished as lonely piers stretching across the rivers. The process of abandonment is akin to that of the end of the Roman Empire in Britain, massive administrative, industrial and municipal buildings are left to decay and fall down whilst the modern Georgians build houses in the local style and use the old buildings only as a source of raw materials. A local told us that the Soviet Union had a policy of allowing a region to produce only one certain type of manufactured good (such as steel), with other regions producing other goods. That way no one region would be self-sufficient enough to produce everything they needed to become independent. With the supply and demand of the rest of the Soviet Union dried up, and the massive complex Soviet central administration abandoned, Georgia's factories fell silent and the villages have reverted to a subsistence economy.

The same did not hold for Armenia, however, and after a beautiful drive through the lush green Dmanisi valley in Georgia where the earliest human remains outside of Africa have been found, we crossed the border into the high grasslands of Armenia and were struck by a very different feeling. The roads are very well-maintained — there were lots of roadworks going on — and whilst evidence of the Soviet era is still obvious the impression of decay and neglect is not.

Both Georgia and Armenia are extremely religious countries, each vying for the position of having the earliest Christian church in the region. We visited the monastery of Geghard, about an hour's drive east of Yerevan and inscribed on the World Heritage list. Built partly into the rock-face of a huge gorge the austere majesty of Geghard was overwhelming — this is an expression of Christian worship in sharp contrast to the gaudy style of Melk, Austria. With architecture reminiscent of the rock-hewn churches of Lalibela in Ethiopia, the monastery is carved around an ancient spring that bubbles forth into the font and down through the rough floor of the church. The spring has been revered since prehistoric times and visitors still fill their water bottles with the sacred water to take home. The quiet holiness of the place is humbling, with characteristic Celtic-style crosses carved into almost every surface — blackened with years of candle soot and incense. The family crest of two chained lions with dragon's heads for tails, above an eagle clutching a lamb, in an ante-chamber lit by the candles of devotees, is a most impressive piece of relief sculpture. The monastery itself was established around the beginning of the fourth century and was once home to the relic of the Holy Lance that pierced Christ's side and gives the monastery its name (Geghardavank — Monastery of the Spear).

Reconstructed first-century AD temple to Mithras/Helios at Garni.

Another view of the reconstructed temple to Mithras/Helios at Garni

Proceeding along the side of the Azat river gorge, that affords tantalising glimpses of the double-peak of snow-capped holy Mount Ararat, we also visited the first-century AD temple to Mithras/Helios at Garni. The temple has been fully reconstructed and stands on the edge of a breathtaking gorge, a suitable place for a sun-temple, and forming part of a wider 'Summer Palace' complex with a massive defensive wall. The site is well-presented, with excellent signage — but the copious amount of speakers piping gentle classics such as the love theme from the Godfather and the Twin Peaks opening credits across the site adds a certain surreal feel to the experience. Garni has some excellent examples of khachkars — or stone cross carvings. A large number of these stone crosses have been carved on former Bronze Age vishaps or 'dragon stones' — tall stones usually situated at water sources and inscribed with serpent-like imagery. During the conversion of Armenia to Christianity, the serpents were removed and replaced with carvings of an early form of the khachkar. We speculated as to whether this rich and mysterious mountainous land, where dragons guard fleeces, whose teeth grow armies, and which are carved into ancient stones, and where Christianity took such an early and such a powerful hold, is where the myth of St George defeating the Dragon comes from… but it was time to move on, and we took our leave of the Caucasus, and headed down out of the mountains to cross the border into another ancient and foreign land — Persia.