my thesis. which i should, theoretically, be working on as i type this. due to numerous general enquiries into what exactly i am doing, seeing as the last entry regarding my topic is now completely out of date and irrelevant, i shall endeavour to explain what it is exactly. and hopefully, this will give me inspiration to work through the day!

there is a place called sagalassos. it is in the mountains in turkey. and it was a big roman city once upon a time. and this is the site that the archaeologists here at kuleuven have been working on. all of my professors have some sort of connection to sagalassos. and every year, around june-august, they head over to turkey, with students and workers from all over the place, to continue to discover how the city functioned in antiquity.

sagalassos is the place that i am hoping to work at next year, once i have finished my thesis. i have applied but won't find out until february, so i will keep you all posted.

for all of those interested, check out: www.sagalassos.be for more details about the site itself and the work that is being done there.

now. as for my thesis. which is far more geographically focussed than it was previously. i am planning on reconstructing the environment - the terrain, the vegetation, the geomorphology - during the late imperial - early byzantine periods in the sagalassos region. for a quick history lesson: sagalassos was at its prime in roman times, but afterwards started to decline, and in the middle of the 7th century AD, it was abandoned completely.

by working with brand new satellite images (that were taken a month ago) of the area - i should be able to map the area in detail, and in doing so, maybe shed more light on the reasons people lived where they did, and left when they did (a big earthquake shook sagalassos and is thought to be the main reason for its complete abandonment in the end).

positives:
1: all literature is in english - hurrah!!
2: all lecturers that know stuff and have first hand experience and primary data are in one of two buildings here in leuven.
3: i get to do geography after all!
4: by the end - i will be exceptionally good at computer programmes that are very necessary today for archaeologists - this is good, because often thesis topics are very specialised and don't help much in the future, yet here i will have a lot of useful skills which will be beneficial.

negatives:
1: i have to work with confusing computer programmes (for those geographers out there - this means dreaded g.i.s. stuff) which take a lot of time and effort to work with when you don't know what you are doing.
2: while i can now understand the literature, i cannot understand my supervisor as well as i would like.