Digging through midlife: joints, memories, dreams.

Why return to Sagalassos? This is a question unique to me, Luke Lavan, subproject director, as most other site workers would likely say ‘why not return to Sagalassos?’.

I have already done a Sagalassos spell from 2004-2006, as one of two case studies for my work on Public Space in the Late Antique City. It has to be admitted that for most students and young scholars on site, their time here is usually something of a rite of passage for coming of age (adventures abroad) mixed with holidays with friends in a photogenic setting. All this places them within a heroic narrative intelligible to family and admirers at home. It is what their university offers as an archaeological experience, and students grab the opportunity with both hands. Not everyone has chosen the site because its evidence corresponds well with a series of research objectives, nor because they see it is as a proving ground for late antique urban archaeology, as I did after a year of visiting hundreds of ancient cities in Turkey and adjacent regions in 2003, when I met Mark Waelkens. He invited me to investigate late antique public space within the city, innovating field methods to study late building and occupation from stone surface traces, spolia studies, and a survey of the context of inscriptions.

Results came through, when I was left to rummage in the archives or wander across site with a measuring stick. These included the recognition of a planned market with canopies and place inscriptions on the Upper Agora, the discovery of a major late state group decorating the E portico of the Lower Agora, the movement or removal of many other statues elsewhere, the identification of patterns within the placing of gameboards and crosses, the finding of late repairs where few were anticipated, and the revelation of strong contrasts within late spolia use in the city, relating to political management and chronology. The last antique city, of the time of Justinian and Mohammed emerged particularly clearly as a well-run, broadly led political community in which public services remained strong at a time when civic identity was slowly being Christianised, without detracting from its classical heritage. Constantinople in miniature.

Now I'm back to follow up the topic of spolia, which I began in 2005, to try to address the late phases of the city, especially on its southern flank. First we surveyed the colonnaded street in 2022, then the late fortification in 2023, now some porticoes and shops. Now we move onto open areas and sondages in 2024. My love of the discipline, the site, and the subject is still there, and my staff are among the best I have worked with. My love of Turkey and its people is also burning as brightly as it ever did. Surely, such a well preserved ancient city with well-excavated late antique remains can give us a testing ground for new field methods for the subject and give the students a field class in late antique archaeology? . I have just stepped off the plane from Vietnam, flying into London to pick up the kit. After one hour's sleep, I am raring to go, as the dig begins a day earlier than expected ... I hope to survive.

There are still a few other veterans from my time in 2004-2006, Peter above all, then Inge, Mustafa the cook, and many workmen, now in mid-life just as I am. How they keep up the work on site is beyond me. I also miss my younger self in some moments, full of optimism, energy, and an iconoclastic spirit. I hope to fulfill the hopes that I had back then, whilst also letting Sagalassos have its effect on me. Now that I know what happened in these streets and squares in late antiquity, from my study of everyday life, I almost find myself listening to voices as I walk through the byways of the city. Perhaps it is time to slow down and listen to the ghosts as analysis and observation take precedence over physical energy. I once surveyed all the spolia of the city wall in two days, climbing ravines to do so. Now I will take it a bit easier, and try to make my dig site a good place for a new generation of archaeologists to take their place in the history of investigation of this place.