Voices From the Field (2025-04-16)
This year’s work at the Kaymakçı Archaeological Project began earlier than ever. In addition to maximizing our time to push the project’s many interrelated components forward in general, the early start this year had a specific target. Whereas the worm is the proverbial aim of the early bird in the common saying, our target was soil moisture. What? Yes, soil moisture, because it is the prime variable of the local landscape that dictates the quality of geophysical (electrical resistance) survey results at Kaymakçı (separate from an excellent team, of course!). Start to late in the spring, and prolonged exposure to the hot Mediterranean sun dries out the soil, making it entirely unconducive to resistance survey.
This year’s season began with the annual start-of-season visit to the Manisa Museum, which is rumored to be opening its permanent exhibition doors again to the public soon, after some 20+ years of transition and temporary exhibitions.
Thereafter, the seals on the finds depot at Kaymakçı were broken and the interior inspected under the supervision of Manisa Museum officials.
The first job for the geophysics team was to stake out the series of 20 × 20 m grids that will be the focus of the season’s survey efforts. This year, survey concentrates on three distinct areas outside Kaymakçı’s well-defined citadel, in order to explore the extent of buried architecture, bedrock cuts, and other features in these extramural areas of the site: the southwest slope, the northeast slope, and the Kaymakçı Lakeshore (although it’s anachronistic to still use this latter term, given the lake has been desiccated since 2021).
We hope the results will reward this early start and look forward to sharing them in the future!
