Thursday, August 23, 2012

Last week, a lot of work...

Last week, a lot of work, but here are a few more pictures ...

From Ovçular Tepesi to go in Restaurant last day off. 8 persons on car...

A day in Duzdag with army and deminers because we found two shells 1970s. At that time, the Soviet Union was training his army for Afghanistan.

Thierry in a landslide over a former gallery can be dated from 4000 BC. It's very, very narrow ...

Kültepe one important archaeological site was excavate in 1970 by the Soviets. Rémi resumes excavations after more than 40 years the site has become a dustbin.    
No comment ! Before christmas...

Sunday, August 12, 2012

Home sweet home...

Some pictures of our home in Nakhchivan city where Thierry and me are. The rest of the mission are in a small village where they excavate the site of Ovçular Tepesi.

Our car still alive !

Our house with its own garden...
...its outdoor toilet...
... his sheep for the end of Ramadan ...



The flowers of the neighbor 
We clean, mark every ceramic shards.







Tuesday, August 7, 2012

Some news photos from the Excavation

We continue our excavation of the salt mine Duzdag.
 
After a first gallery actually quite recent, we found pits in the level of salt that were made ​​6000 years before present according to the ceramics found. Quiet nice!

First Galery excavate.

Ceramic from 4000 B.C.


Work on the salt pits

It's not clear but there 3 salt pits

Some stone tools

After excavation the 3 pits are more clear

the views from more up in the salt mountain

Other archaeologists came to visit our site

Thursday, August 2, 2012

The excavation began ... well almost!

Hello, well after some days with no internet connection I find time and a place to go to the net.

So I finally arrived with Ömer in Igdir last Sunday and we past with the rest of the team the border between Turkey and Nakhchivan. Ömer directely take a bus to go back to Kilis.

After just when we arrived on our camp in Ovçular Tepesi, it's was raining a lot. A terrible storm, some friends started to set up their tents in the rain. A good start !


The day after, with Thierry, we went to install us in Nakhchivan City. We are the second team working on the salt mine: Duzdag.
 But the problem of car continue every days, I passed 4 hours today for change the brakes of the left wheel. 

But, with Nizami our Azeri colleague, and Thierry, the specialist in tunnel, mining excavation, we start and we now work on a small gallery of 4x4 m





 Inside, there is the salt layer. Specialists will see traces of metal spikes. These are the most recent traces of this mine.

We hope that the oldest exploitation period will be Kuro-Arax.It is the end of the fifth or fourth millennium B.C.

Bye, bye with the view from our excavation and see you soon ! 

Saturday, July 28, 2012

Ağrı final step before Nakhchivan

We are in Ağrı tonight. The day started as it finished with the mechanics. 
Then we drove, first the plains and fields of yellow hay 






, and the mountains appeared around Bitlis 








then we arrived at Lake Van 








and finally the plain of Patnos / Ağrı.


We are tired, the excavation has not yet begun.

Tomorrow we cross the border and we installs the camp in Dize, a village where the team excavate an
Chalcolithic settlement (4000 BCE).