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A story from a dig in Turkey that changed how I see broken pottery
I was working on a site near Ephesus last summer, mostly just moving dirt and sifting. One afternoon, I was feeling pretty down because all I'd found for hours were tiny, plain bits of clay. An older archaeologist from the local university, Dr. Aydin, saw me and sat down. He picked up a completely boring, brown shard from my tray and said, 'This was someone's plate. They ate from it, maybe dropped it, and a child got told off for the noise.' He then spent ten minutes just talking about the one piece, imagining the family, the meal, the moment it broke. It wasn't about the object itself, but the life it was part of. I used to just see fragments as data points, but now I always try to picture the hands that held them. Has anyone else had a moment like that, where a simple comment from someone on site totally shifted your focus?
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laura_black311mo ago
Wait, he just sat down and did that for a plain brown shard? That's wild. Most people would just walk past something that looks like nothing. It really shows how much story is in the most boring find.
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simonl111mo ago
Spot that everywhere now. See a worn step in an old building and picture all the feet that made the dip. Find a single toy car in the park and think about the kid who lost it. It's like the most normal stuff around us is covered in fingerprints from other lives, we just usually don't slow down to see it.
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