25.ULUSLARARASI ORTAÇAĞ VE TÜRK DÖNEMİ KAZILARI VE SANAT TARİHİ ARAŞTIRMALARI
EXPERIENCES IN ARCHITECTURAL CONSERVATION FROM A MEDIEVAL AGES EXCAVATİON
Yazarlar:
Zeynep MERCANGÖZ
Ersin SERÇEK
Yayıncı:
Necmettin Erbakan Üniversitesi Yayınları
There is a common expression in archaeology that never unearths what you can’t protect! Of course this is not always easy. Unlike the massive block-stone architecture of antiquity, those of the Middle Ages rarely had lime-mortar rubble walls, which are very difficult to maintain if you dig them out of the ground. However, in the excavations, budgets are not always sufficient for conservation projects with neither material nor restorers. Still, as Kuşadası, Kadıkalesi/Anaia Excavations we are lucky that we had projects supported by TUBITAK and GEKA in two of our architectural projection interventions. But while the walls uncovered in each excavation season are strengthened by capping, we clean up many minor objects/small finds and we put together the glazed and unglazed sherds to restore the Byzantine potteries. The first of the urgent interventions was in 2002, in the castle, the walls of prayer hall (namazgâh) just in front of the inner door, our archaeologist Prof. Ersin Doğer’s suggestion, it was to coat (capping) it with mud. Before the following year, however, the earth had run over the walls in rain. In the next season, when we try to cover the rubble walls with some straw that we mixed in the mud, a year after weeds grew on the walls. Then, we added the cement into the mud for capping the walls as an order by archaeologist Rıdvan İşler who is also our conservator. This time the cracks were occurred on the walls. Whatever result, all of these applications were for unmortar or mud-mortared walls. When a monumental church begun to unearth in the year 2007, we made the mortar of the walls of it analyzed, to order special material. And then with the support of TÜBİTAK in 2009, this time the walls and murals in the church were reinforced with the service from an architecture firm. In our paper, we wanted to share with you, all our practices that require us to act urgent in order to preserve the architecture and supported projects in the Kuşadası, Kadıkalesi/Anaia Excavations. Thus, we aim to draw attention to the change in our excavation for twenty years, while revealing positive and negative results on the interventions.
