{"id":47,"date":"2019-10-09T15:51:31","date_gmt":"2019-10-09T15:51:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/research.unl.edu\/annualreport\/2019\/?p=47"},"modified":"2019-10-24T18:56:37","modified_gmt":"2019-10-24T18:56:37","slug":"from-mundane-to-extraordinary-uncovering-clues-to-ancient-life","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/research.unl.edu\/annualreport\/2019\/from-mundane-to-extraordinary-uncovering-clues-to-ancient-life\/","title":{"rendered":"From Mundane to Extraordinary: Uncovering Clues to Ancient Life"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>Nebraska archeologist Michael Hoff claims it\u2019s just as exciting to unearth potsherds and animal bones as, say, to exhume a dumped murder victim or catch ancient Romans engaging in potty humor. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>But he admits that finding a million dollars or so in 17th-century pirate booty was pretty exciting.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Hoff, professor of art history, has spent the past\n14 summers leading the excavation at Antiochia ad Cragum, an ancient Roman city overlooking the Mediterranean Sea in southern Turkey.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"150\" height=\"150\" src=\"https:\/\/research.unl.edu\/annualreport\/2019\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/10\/190726_Hoff_003-150x150.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-243\"\/><figcaption>Michael Hoff<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>For Hoff, every object helps him imagine the people who once went about their lives there. The object might attract international attention, such as 2018\u2019s discovery of a bawdy mosaic created to entertain users of a public latrine. Or it might be a simple gold hoop earring a woman lost one day down the swimming pool drain. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow\"><p>\u201cWe don\u2019t know what we\u2019re going to find. It\u2019s what makes archaeology fun.\u201d<\/p><cite>Michael Hoff<\/cite><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n<p>But potsherds and other everyday items help Hoff\u2019s team piece together trade routes, diets and how the Roman economy changed over time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cAll these tidbits make the site come alive,\u201d Hoff said. \u201cWe don\u2019t know what we\u2019re going to find. It\u2019s what makes archaeology fun.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Hoff oversees a large excavation program that attracts more volunteers, research staff and students from the United States, Turkey and elsewhere each year. The 2019 program drew 110 people. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Participants continue excavating the site\u2019s structures, including bath houses, a shop-lined street, council house, mausoleum and temple. In 2019, researchers also began exploring the city\u2019s aqueducts and roads to better understand the area\u2019s infrastructure. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<iframe src=\"https:\/\/mediahub.unl.edu\/media\/10139?format=iframe&amp;autoplay=0\" title=\"Video Player:  Antioch by the Cliffs\" allowfullscreen=\"\"><\/iframe>\n\n\n\n<p>And they continued conserving the dead man and pirate treasure, both discovered in 2018. Though they arrived \u2013 separately \u2013 after Antiochia was abandoned and had become a remote place to stash a body or loot, they\u2019re part of the site\u2019s ongoing human story. What, Hoff wonders, befell the man or the pirate who didn\u2019t return for his staggering load of silver and gold coins?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The Merops Foundation, participation fees and private donations funded the project\u2019s recent field work. St. Olaf College in Minnesota and several Turkish universities are associated with the program.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Nebraska archeologist Michael Hoff claims it\u2019s just as exciting to unearth potsherds and animal bones as, say, to exhume a dumped murder victim or catch ancient Romans engaging in potty humor. But he admits that finding a million dollars or so in 17th-century pirate booty was pretty exciting. Hoff, professor of art history, has spent [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":110,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[21,20,19,14,159,22,18],"class_list":["post-47","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-antiochia-ad-cragum","tag-archaeology","tag-art-history","tag-history","tag-international-collaboration","tag-merops-foundation","tag-michael-hoff","entry"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/research.unl.edu\/annualreport\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/research.unl.edu\/annualreport\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/research.unl.edu\/annualreport\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/research.unl.edu\/annualreport\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/research.unl.edu\/annualreport\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=47"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/research.unl.edu\/annualreport\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":323,"href":"https:\/\/research.unl.edu\/annualreport\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47\/revisions\/323"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/research.unl.edu\/annualreport\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/110"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/research.unl.edu\/annualreport\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=47"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/research.unl.edu\/annualreport\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=47"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/research.unl.edu\/annualreport\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=47"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}