Archaeology on film -- rich pickings

[TurkC-L]

Archaeology on film -- rich pickings

* A German film on the recent discoveries made at Troy showed how,
with the use of sophisticated technology, the extent of the city
of Troy was mapped. This research showed that Homer's 50,000
inhabitants could easily have lived in this lower city below the
citadel and helps to end the speculation about whether Troy is
really the Troy of Homer's IIiad

T.M.P. Duggan

Antalya - Turkish Daily News

The Antalya archaeology film show at the Antalya Cultural Center from
Nov. 3-5, sponsored by the Italian Cultural Center Istanbul, Fiat, The
Vehbi Koc foundation and the Mediterranean Research Institute offered
a feast of films of varying quality.

The first day's highpoint was a French film of the discovery
underwater of the seventh wonder of the world, the Pharos (lighthouse)
of Alexandria, Egypt and the raising of some of its monumental statues
after the fallen masonry was carefully mapped in 1995. The site was
discovered by a couple diving in the 1960s and the French
archaeologists brought the lady back to dive again and see the extent
of their discoveries. As a result of their findings the location was
declared an important site by the Egyptian government and the danger
of an extension of the seawall covering the site was removed. As much
of ancient Hellenistic, Roman and Byzantine Alexandria has vanished
beneath "the post-war explosion of concrete buildings," to find the
Hellenistic lighthouse lying in the bay where it had fallen after an
earthquake was a great discovery. The film had a fascinating storyline
and pace, was well scripted and the film quality was excellent.

A philosophical excursion into archaeology

The English film of the Catal Hoyuk excavation on the Konya plain
concentrated minds on the astonishingly rapid decay of the painted
walls brought to light by James Mellart's excavations at the site
starting in 1961 and now on display at the Museum of Anatolian
Civilizations in Ankara. When compared to the accurate colored
drawings made at the time of discovery, one wonders if the present
attempt to preserve the new finds using new scientific methods can
preserve these thin layers of mud and paint for further thousands of
years or if they will go the faded way of the earlier finds.

Todays director of the excavations, Ian Hodder, explained the
predicament archaeology faces. How much of what is found is
understood? How much is misunderstood, the misunderstandings caused by
perceptions that do not pertain to the period of the artifact but to
our own time? Is a given stone knife a ritual or a functional object
or both, or has it another meaning pertinent to this earliest
"civilized" town dwelling society? James Mellart spoke of the meaning
he saw in some of the wall paintings and I admired his sensibility.
The present practice seems more nebulous, almost as though, with all
the scientific equipment, an Internet site with virtual reality and
other technological folderols, somehow a philosophy of diffidence and
evasion has prevailed.

The past is what you make of it and understanding it changes both as
we change our understanding and as more facts are found in the ground,
but, as the past inevitably moulded its own past by its perceptions,
so if we cease to mould and form our understanding, all we are left
with are the objects themselves. This is less than generous to these
objects as they had a human context and we perhaps have a
responsibility to understand this context. Can the quest for meaning
be evaded and will there ever be sufficient evidence to exclude all
other possibilities or is it vital to present a clear, if necessarily
imperfect, position on unearthed artifacts? The two positions the film
showed are these: that it is impossible to know for sure and secondly
that a working hypothesis is a tool that provides a temporary but
sufficient answer until there proves reason to change it, as we are
temporary creatures ourselves. There is no necessity for the first to
exclude the second or vice versa but to adopt the first to the
exclusion of the second raises doubt to a higher principle than is
compatible with comprehension. This serves to undermine the practice
of scholarship based on research, hypothesis, thesis and rebuttal for
quantum uncertainty applied to prehistory is anarchic. The film lasted
44 minutes but the approaches indicated by these two archaeologists
are the essence of what archaeology is about, not the objects
themselves but how they are to be understood.

An Italian film of the rock cut tombs and fortifications of Pantalina
(Sicily), dating back to 1300 B.C. and an Italian film showing the
underground Rome of cisterns, waterworks, hypogeums, underground
dwellings, frescos and mosaics were overshadowed by a short(18 min.)
film on the 9th century B.C. site at Orroli in Sardinia. Here an odd,
almost science fiction style habitation was excavated, with an
accompanying computer aided reconstruction of the building. Imagine a
series of circular stone towers grouped around a central shaft, with
staircases and rooms, some containing fine proto-geometric and local
pottery. The central shaft flaring at the top like a minaret's
"serefe" in an isolated Sardinian landscape. Quite remarkable.

News from Troy

A German film on the recent discoveries made at Troy showed how, with
the use of sophisticated technology, the extent of the city of Troy
was mapped. This research showed that Homer's 50,000 inhabitants could
easily have lived in this lower city below the citadel and helps to
end the speculation about whether Troy is really the Troy of Homer's
IIiad. The possibility of harbors and navigable canals between the
present coastline and the recently discovered outer city wall was
discussed. Work was carried out to identify the plant seeds, animal
and fish bones including a huge tuna, found in the sixth level
excavations thought to be contemporary with the Trojan War. This
research is helping to provide the texture to Trojan life that
consisted of more than citadels, tombs and rich treasure and it is
this evidence for establishing a context or setting that is of great
importance. Professor Korfmann, director of the Tubingen University
dig at the site of Troy, suggested an allegorical interpretation for
Homer's account of the Greeks' wooden horse -- an earthquake. Poseidon
was the god of waves both on land and sea (waves being symbolized as
horses) and Korfmann suggested Poseidon's attributes in the shape of a
horse came to be identified with the earthquake that opened the
defenses of Troy to the Achaeans. There have been 21 quakes in this
area since 1900 and his suggestion brought to mind the Turkish capture
of the Byzantine forts defending the European side of the straits
including Gallipoli as a result of an earthquake in 1354.

Illegal excavation, smuggling and loss of context

The Turkish film of the Lydian or "East Greek" treasure recovered from
the Metropolitan Museum, New York, after being smuggled from Usak was
a disappointment. In places it seemed like an advert for the Opel
Frontera four-wheel drive motor car as the narrator, Tarik Akan, spoke
with his eyes on the camera and not on the road as he steered the
moving car. The film failed to illuminate the story of how this
fabulous hoard traveled from the villagers' illegal excavation of a
tumulus by Usak to New York. Who were the smugglers, who protected
them, who was paid off, who dealt in these smuggled objects, and is
there an organized smuggling ring. If so, how does it operate, to
order or freelance? Perhaps if the Culture Ministry could institute
some sort of "treasure trove" these illegal digs could have a happier
outcome. The reconstruction of life in ancient Lydia was theatrical.
Not enough was made of the context that is destroyed by illegal
excavations carried out by villagers and treasure hunters where
fragile objects of wood and textiles are destroyed and their telling
position is lost in the hunt for so-called precious artifacts. A
serious subject was downplayed in favor of the actions and face of the
narrator, who is an excellent self-publicist, and the sound quality
was poor. Perhaps a better film could be made by letting the
landscape, objects and people speak for themselves with a voice-over
giving a clear explication of the known facts.

The high point of the second session of films was the Italian "Har
Karkom" on the history of the area surrounding St. Catherine's
Monastery in the Sinai peninsula, Egypt. This was due in part to the
clear exposition of the archaeologist Professor Emmanuel Anati and to
the sheer beauty of the landscape and setting of the monastery. Anati
has traced the prehistoric sites, 4000-2000 B.C., and suggested in the
light of this evidence that the migration of people from Ramses in
Northern Egypt went around the western and eastern edges of the Sinai
peninsula and then into Palestine. Talismanic rock carvings of
scorpions, snakes and birds which date from the Prehistoric period,
are similar to the nomadic "Wasms," ideograms and tribal signs
cataloged by Charles Doughty and other travelers in Arabia, and show a
pattern of continuity at sacred sites that predates the Bible with
Moses and the years of purification in the Sinai. The way that a
sacred place, sanctified by previous worship and acting as a conduit
of grace through different theologies was shown in Har Karkom. The
monastery's interfaith tolerance with pilgrims both Christian and
Muslim visiting the monastery with it's fabulous library was a tribute
to tolerance and grace. There is in this austere landscape of rocky
desert a beauty that frees the mind and which this film captured.

The cursed past of the great altar from Pergamon

"From Bergama to Berlin," a most interesting German film that traced
the history of the Hellenistic altar of 180 B.C., built to celebrate
the Pergammene victory over the Celts. It was discovered by the German
engineer Karl Humann in the 1860s built into a Byzantine fortification
wall. The Ottoman Sultan Abdul Hamit II in a series of decisions that
show an intuition of a high order, successively sold off to Imperial
Germany this altar frieze which carries a Giantomachy or battle of the
Gods against the Titans, sons of the Earth God Gea. The prosperity of
ancient Pergamon was based on the theft and betrayal of trust by
Philetaerus of the money left in his care by Alexander the Great's
successor Lysimachus. Nothing of lasting good came of this as the film
showing the subsequent history of the altar makes clear.

The work of the sculptors is full of hubris, and hubris, the belief
that humans are Gods with the inevitable catastrophic fall that
follows this presumption, marks the history of this monument from its
arrival in Berlin. Here it became a symbol of the newly unified
Germany with its Kaiser and capital at Berlin. Rehoused in a new
museum as a symbol of the Weimar Republic after World War I, it was
adopted as a symbol of the "Superman," of violence and power by the
Nazi Regime. After the collapse of the 1000-year Reich in 12 years in
1945, the Russians spirited the pieces of the altar out of the soon to
be declared British sector of the city and took it to St. Petersburg
where it was stored until 1958. In 1958 with the uprisings against the
Russians in Eastern Europe, they, with much pomp and speechifying,
returned the altar to East Germany to reinforce the bond between the
two peoples. This altar has proved to serve as a focus for the
articulation of a vision that is blood soaked and full of hubris.
Evidence for this use of the Pergamon altar was presented in letters,
newsprint, newsreels, photographs and recorded speeches.

The film included an interview with the then director of the Bergama
Museum, Metin Pehlivanlar who suggested not the return of the altar
but that the Germans supply a scale model, 100 meters or so, to
provide a setting in the center of Bergama for a tea garden for the
tourists to drink tea in and smoke the water pipe. He seems, after
watching this film, to be intuitively aware that this altar is damned.
He may also be concerned with its monstrous size and the cost of
returning it up the 1000 meter hill from whence it came and his words
stand in contrast to the repeated calls for the altar's return to
Turkey. If precedent is any guide, who would want the return of this
altar with its attendant symbolism?

More news from Troy

The film of the "125 years of excavation at Troy" clearly cataloged
the excavations at this site from H. Schliemann in the 1870s to C.
Blegen in the 1930s to the present with M. Korfmann which supplemented
the first day's film. It showed arrowheads found in the lower city
walls dating from the period of the Trojan War, trade between Troy and
the Mycenean cities, with the Hittites, the Black sea ports and the
Balkans as well as Egypt in 1400-1300 B.C. The surveying of the lower
city, the discovery of a large statue of Hadrian found in the recently
excavated theater and the ongoing excavations show how much this site
still has to offer the archaeologist and researcher.

"Midas," a Turkish film, showed some of the excavated glories of
Phrygian art and the unexcavated cult center of Yazilikaya with its
mysterious rock carvings. The commentary drew attention to how little
is known of Phrygian culture and religion and showed the need for
further efforts to understand this enigmatic period of Anatolia's past
with its beautiful pottery, metalwork, stone and ivory carving.

"Underground Rome part 2" continued the exploration of subterranean
barracks, burial places, water piping, hypogeums, tunnels, a cult
center of Mithras and splendid natural shell mosaic work.

The Turkish computer-animated short and silent film (5mins.) "From St.
Sophia to Suleymaniye" was marred by poor film quality inside the
mosques but served to clearly show the impact of this Byzantine model
on the later Ottoman mosques built by Sinan.

The two Greek films, one on Byzantine Mosaics and the other on the
Patmos Monastery, were good educational films with a rich vocabulary,
storyline and content that provided an introduction to Byzantine art
and thought.

The third session of films opened with an excellent German film of the
excavations, 1991-96, at Nevalo Cori in the foothills of the Harran
plain. The site is due to be submerged beneath the waters of a new
dam. The excavation has exposed the pattern of building over a period
of 1,000 years in the Stone Age, beginning in 10,000 B.C., and has
uncovered the oldest existing stone housing from 10,000 B.C. There are
a series of 19-meter-long, thin rooms, the lower parts of the walls of
stone, the uppers probably of wood and mud, that may have been used
for storage. These rooms were cooled by a series of channels, diverted
from the nearby stream that ran under the houses. The complex of
buildings contained wall paintings in red and black and a sacred room
14 by 14 meters. This room had a remarkable lime floor that is still
impervious to water and stone cult statues survived, built into the
walls. The whole of this structure will be displayed at the Urfa
Museum. Other finds of sculpture included a large number of clay
figurines of large-breasted kneeling women and an equal number of
standing men.

Within the 1,000 years of settlement at Nevalo Cori are five levels of
rebuilding and the team has discovered 390,000 objects. They found a
stone chipping room where arrowheads, scrapers and knives were made.
The archaeologists and their associates are developing a terminology
for Stone Age implements which, if it becomes internationally
accepted, will greatly aid the understanding of sites and publications
on the Stone Age. At this site there is evidence of the change from
man as hunter-gatherer to a user of simple, sustainable agriculture,
in part, it was suggested, caused by the gradual reduction in the
gazelle population and the domestication of sheep, goats and oxen.
From the bones found, boars were hunted and there were domesticated
dogs. Vast number of bones were found buried in pits which may imply a
respect for animal spirits.

Early crops in these formerly rich grasslands consisted of peas,
lentils, grains, wheat which was threshed, grape vines and pistachios.
Why the site was finally abandoned after 1,000 years is presently
unknown but the inhabitants were, as a result of careful bone fragment
analysis, shown to have suffered from acute malaria, other health
problems and nasal infections. Shells from the Red Sea and obsidian
show the range of trade in 10,000 B.C., while the possible storage
areas suggest that the surplus was stored and perhaps exchanged for
trade goods.

This excavation was well filmed and showed the degree of
inter-university expertise brought together to understand man's
earliest Stone Age built settlement in Turkey. They exposed the high
culture of the Stone Age, the longevity of settlement as well as a
responsible caution in dealing with bones that may contain dangerous
viral material that remains contagious for thousands of years. Some of
the practical tools developed at this site were not hi-tech and there
were no flashy computer simulations, just the painstaking cataloging
of man's ancient past.

Mosaic styles and influences

The Italian film on the Roman Villa called Philosophiana at Enna in
Sicily, which dates from the 4th century A.D., showed the 3,500 square
meters of late antique mosaics exposed by the dedicated archaeologist
Paolo Orsi who has brought this site to life since he began excavating
here in the 1930s. The film discussed the reason for the mosaic cycles
and frescos, their apparent subject matter and hidden symbolism and
who commissioned them, perhaps the governor of Roman Sicily from
327-31 A.D. There are differences in the mosaic floors between those
made by craftsmen from Asia Minor, with their expressionistic graphic
style and those made by North African craftsmen. The interesting and
complex relationship between Sicily, North Africa and Italy was
touched upon. The film drew attention to the problems of
reconstruction and roofing of a site of this importance and extent and
to the fact that this rebuilding restricts the excavation of
unexplored areas. Perhaps if all new building parts were painted white
they would be less obtrusive?

In the Italian film on the habitations at Matera, the relationship of
man to his landscape and building materials in this karstic area and
the change from prehistoric cave dwelling to an early neolithic form
of agriculture with its stockades, houses, grottos and galleries,
waterways, canals and cisterns to the mediaeval town crowning the
hillside, built of the same stone, showed the link between man, his
environment, water supply and beauty.

The Italian film of the archaeologists from Pisa working at Fayum in
Egypt was marred by the poor quality of the film print. The
excavations of the Temple of Vega, 2000 B.C. where fine reliefs and
hieroglyphics formed a colonnaded, roofed vestibule to the tomb
itself, showed the difficulties the team from Pisa faces, the moving
sand, wind and heat all having their impact. The survey of the area
around Wadi Raian and the original shape of the lake in Pharonic times
was assessed, with successive settlements from pre history to Ptolemy
and the Romans being exposed. This site was first brought to world
attention by the discovery of ancient papyri and Roman encaustic (wax)
painted mummy face coverings of wood a century ago. The excavations
and restorations carried out by this Italian team should bring much
needed understanding of land use, customs, ritual and settlement in
this area of Egypt.

The Italian film "From the Alps to the Pyramids" was finely filmed.
The team climbing the Pyramid and the Egyptian children imitating
them, the examples of Pyramids in architecture from Egypt, Babylon and
Central America to the modern Glass Pyramid of the Louvre, Paris and
the models and simulations of pyramids and construction methods were
engaging but seemed of little substance.

A slick and deceiving film

The film entitled "Great Cities of the Ancient World" lasted 56
minutes. Rome, Pompeii, Athens and Cairo were given a computer-aided
touch of technology, not to bring these ancient cities to life but to
scrub the human touch from them. These dead computer images were
superimposed on the present cityscapes and were a sad, totalitarian
and sterile sight. The ancient history of these cities was shown by
clips from Hollywood films which paid scant regard to historical and
archaeological accuracy. The interpolation of pictures by Ingres, the
French neoclassical painter and works by the English neoclassical
painter Alma Tadema served no valid purpose but to confuse the
audience and create images in the mind of the viewer that are
factually inaccurate. The whole thrust of this production, including
the computer simulations, was for an audience that was neither high
nor low but of no brow! It was a regrettable inclusion in this
archaeological film festival and was the longest film. Fancy computer
graphics turned these antique sites into science-fiction travesties
devoid of the mark of their ancient builders and empty of meaning.

In conclusion, this first archaeological film festival in Antalya was
a success. The audience was appreciative and the sponsors deserve
congratulation for bringing these films to Antalya. With few
exceptions the films were intellectually stimulating and translation
facilities were provided for the Italian, German and English films
into Turkish. The problems which need to be addressed if this
excellent event is to be repeated are these: some films listed in the
program failed to appear which was a disappointment -- these were the
Turkish film "The Treasury of Father Christmas at Demre" and films on
the Etruscans, the American Red Indians and the city of Leptis Magna.
Secondly the Antalya Culture Center (AKM) in its monthly program
listed a 7 p.m. start, when the program in fact started three hours
earlier. Thirdly, if each film could be followed by a short break
rather than a single long break in the middle of the program, the four
hours of films shown in each session would not have seemed such a
marathon and the mind could adjust more easily to the films as they
switched from country to country and spanned the millennia. To move in
seconds from Ptolemaic Egypt to neolithic Central Anatolia requires a
pause between them to refocus the mind. Finally, each film's credits
were cut. But these are details which cannot overshadow the value of
this first festival of archaeological films in Antalya.

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