#guestpost

Ed. note: After an early life on the move, Mihriban Özbaşaran’s family came to Istanbul, where she first  studied at Kadıköy Maarif College before beginning her career with  a BA in classical archaeology at Istanbul University. Prehistory held greater appeal however, and she completed her graduate work in the Department of Prehisoty, having been taught by TrowelBlazers Halet ÇambelandUfuk Esin. As a student of Ufuk, she dug at Değirmentepe and Aşıklı Höyük; she then directed excavations at the sites of Musular and sections of the world famous UNESCO heritage site of Çatalhöyük(whereShahina Farid also worked).  She became director of the Aşıklı Höyük Research Project and carried on the revolutionary legacy of the project, bringing in modern theoretical approaches and analyses despite criticism . Professor Özbaşaran is part of a long line of TrowelBlazing women, and her dedication and research have inspired this wonderful group guest post from her students, colleagues, and those who have had the chance to sit with her on the dig house porch  in the long evenings of the field season.

It is my absolute  pleasure to introduce you to someone who has made a massive contribution to my own my research career at Aşıklı Höyük, and continues to inspire others.

-Brenna

Mihriban Özbaşaran

“Someone will hear you, if you are brave enough to speak out loud in the silence of emptiness.” - Althusser

Turkey is a place where endless layers of the past are stacked on top of each other. Unfortunately, archaeology cannot make the most of this rich heritage using only outdated theoretical perspectives of material cultural; the use of a Culture-Historical approach in archaeology has set limits on our understanding of this rich history. Under such conditions, it is refreshing to know that a woman archaeologist has dedicated her career to bringing academic freedom and equality as well as a modern theoretical interpretive approach to archaeology in Turkey.

Mihriban Özbaşaran has given 40 years of her life to archaeology. She is one of the most important TrowelBlazers alive and has become one of the most prominent members of the discipline. Besides directing the research team in the oldest settlement of Central Anatolia, at Aşıklı, Özbaşaran is recognised for her resolve to include theory, interpretation, and question–driven research in archaeology. With her endless idealism, she believes that archaeology may offer a different path or a new approach to issues that concern society. Her aim is to make archaeology an integral part of society, and relevant to a wider community, through the production of knowledge, sharing, and collaboration. Despite opposition, she has stood up for the ideal of connecting the practice and theory of archaeology with wider contemporary social and political trends in the environment in which archaeology is carried out. As a result of her idealistic nature, she prefers inclusiveness to the traditional hierarchical relationships that can exist on excavations, and has created an environment at Aşıklı Höyük Project for people to connect and collaborate. Mihriban Özbaşaran has always been welcoming to people, whether they are researchers concerned about professional issues or others that come to her with daily matters, as long as they want to participate in this environment.

The Aşıklı Höyük Project has not only been exploring and publishing a 10,000 year old history of the first sedentary societies, their social, cultural, and economic transformations, but it hasalso become a school where students are trained with a collective mindset that emphasises collaboration and relevance to wider society, rather than a strictly hierarchic team structure. This approach is what is needed in today’s academia. As an academic who has struggled against established dogmas and their limitations, she has dedicated 25 years to Aşıklı Höyük Project while establishing bonds between local society and communities with the academic archaeological excavation; in addition to training students in a collaborative fashion. In doing so, Mihriban has always stressed whys and hows of the discipline, and has taken the practice of archaeology in Turkey to a whole new level by bringing inclusiveness and sharing to the forefront. These qualities make her a prominent archaeologist, and a TrowelBlazer both in Turkey and in the world.

Mihriban Özbaşaran

“Boşluğun sessizliğinde yüksek sesle konuşma yürekliliğini gösterirseniz birileri sizi mutlaka duyar.” -Althusser

Türkiye geçmişin üst üste, adeta sonsuza dek tabakalandığı sıradışı coğrafyalardan biridir. Ne yazık ki arkeoloji bu muazzam potansiyeli yeterince iyi kullanamamaktadır. Kültür tarihçiliğin karanlık dehlizlerinde, elinden hiç düşürmediği materyal kültür öğeleriyle varlığını sürdürme ısrarı arkeolojiye ihtiyacı olan özgürleşmeyi verememektedir. Böylesi ortamlarda akademik özgürlüğü ve eşitliği savunan, yorumlayıcı bir arkeoloji anlayışı için mücadele eden, üreten birilerinin, bir kadın arkeoloğun olduğunu bilmek gelecek adına önemlidir.

Mihriban Özbaşaran 40 yılını arkeolojiye vermiş, yaşamakta olan en önemli kadın arkeologlardan biridir. Araştırma ve derslerine teorik, yorumlayıcı yaklaşımları nüfuz ettirme biçimi, çalışmalarını sorular çerçevesinde sürdürme özeninin yanı sıra Orta Anadolu’nun en eski yerleşmesi Aşıklı’da başkanlığını yapmakta olduğu çalışmalarla saygın bir figürdür Özbaşaran.

Bitmeyen idealizmi ve inancı ile arkeolojinin toplumsal bağlamda bir program, ya da yeni bir yol sunabileceğini düşünür. Bilgiyi üretme, paylaşma ve dayanışmanın temel ilke olduğu, toplumsal yaşamla bütünleşmiş bir arkeoloji anlayışı için mücadele eder.

Arkeolojik bilgi üretiminin sosyal, toplumsal ve politik bağlamla ile örülü olduğunun ısrarla inkar edildiği bir akademik ortamın içinde mücadele eden bir kadındır.

İdealizminin nihai sonucu, çok seslilikten beslenen, hiyerarşik ilişkileri alt üst etmiş, insanı ve kültürü kendi bağlamında anlayabilen bir ortamın yaratıldığı Aşıklı Höyük Projesi olmuştur. Ve bu ortamın kapısını aralamak isteyen, kafasında sorular ve gerek Türkiye bağlamında mesleğin kendisine gerekse de içinde yaşanılan topluma dair dertler ile gelen herkes Mihriban Özbaşaran tarafından büyük bir idealizm ve kapsayıcılık ile karşılanır.

Aşıklı Höyük Projesi’nde, bölgenin 10.000 yıllık tarihini ve ilk yerleşik toplulukların sosyal, kültürel ve ekonomik dönüşüm ve değişim süreçlerini anlamak ve anlatmak bir yana, Mihriban Özbaşaran’ın en büyük katkısı belki de bilgi ve emek hiyerarşisi olmaksızın kolektif bilim yapmanın, paylaşımcılığın ve mesleği toplumsallaştırmanın nasıl olacağını öğrettiği öğrenciler yetiştirerek farklı bir ekol yaratması olmuştur ve esasen bugün kolektif zekanın yegane üretim alanı olan akademik dünyanın temel ihtiyacı da budur.

Türkiye arkeolojisinin ve akademinin tüm açmazları, engelleri ve dogmaları ile savaşan bir arkeolog, eğitimci ve bilim insanı olarak, 25 yılını verdiği Aşıklı Höyük Projesi ile arkeolojiyi yaklaşımsal olarak insan ve topluma yani ait olduğu bağlama yerleştiren, öğrencilerine geçmişin bugün için anlamını ve yaptığımız işin niyesini, nasılını öğreten, bilimsel bilgi üretimini yalnızca “hocalara özgü bir ayrıcalık” olmaktan çıkaran, bilgisini ve tecrübesini paylaşmaktan asla kaçınmayan Özbaşaran, başta kadın arkeologlar olmak üzere Türkiye ve Dünya arkeolojisi adına güçlü ve önemli bir figürdür.

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Thank you so much to the wonderful team at Aşıklı Höyük for submitting this beautiful guest post! To learn more visit http://asiklihoyuk.tumblr.com/ or follow them on Twitter @ah_arkeoloji

Mary Arizona ‘Zonia’ Baber (1862-1955) is recognized as a pioneer in geography education, and an important figure in promoting equal rights of women and minorities. She emphasized the importance of practical fieldwork and laboratory work in geography teaching, and the importance of applying geographic concepts rather than just memorizing names and places, pedagogic approaches that are still praised and encouraged today.

She earned her teaching credential in 1885 from Cook County Normal School (which later became Chicago State University. ‘Normal schools’ prepared school teachers and later became known as state teacher’s colleges). In 1887 she was recruited as a staff member at Cook County Normal and became their Head of Geography from 1889 - 1901. Following this she held a position as an Associate Professor in the Department of Education at the University of Chicago (Teacher of Geology and Geography, 1901-1921). While teaching, she also began taking classes, including the first geology class that allowed women, and earned her Bachelor of Science degree in 1904. Multi-tasking Trowelblazer extraordinaire, she also co-founded the Geographic Society of Chicago in 1898, at the same time as teaching, running a department and earning her degree. She remained involved with the Society throughout her life, serving as its president from 1900-1904. In 1948 she received the society’s Gold Medal lifetime achievement award. Like Florence Bascom, she was listed as one of the few women in the American Men of Science.

Reproduced from open access article : Geography by
Zonia Baber, published in ‘The Course of Study’ Vol. 1, No. 8 (Apr., 1901), pp. 704-706

 Her efforts to promote women in geography are lessons that we can learn from today and mirror the efforts of the Trowelblazers website to highlight their important contributions. She rrecognized that women were often excluded as speakers at events due to both prejudice and lack of knowledge of their existence, and deliberately sought recommendation for female speakers for the Chicago Geographical Society from fellow Trowelblazer Harriet Chalmers Adams (first president for the Society of Women Geographers). In 1927 Baber herself became president of the SWG. Outside of geography she was also actively involved in suffrage and promoting women’s rights. Baber traveled extensively around the world from Europe to the Middle East, East Asia to the Pacific Islands and the Caribbean, both professionally attending conferences, but also related to her political work. She worked to address racism and the threat of imperialism as well as women’s issues, arguing for racial integration as a priority within then Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom. She was a tireless advocate for women’s suffrage, and in addition to serving on the Race Relations Committee of the Chicago Women’s Club and the Executive Committee of the Chicago Branch of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, she also served on thee Board of Mangers of the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom, and as representative for Puerto Rico for the National Women’s Party, the Asociación Puertoriqueña de Mujeres Sufragistas, and the Liga Social Sufragistas.

Post submitted by Lisa-Marie Shillito

Edited by Brenna

Read more: Zonia herself, on

Geography: http://www.jstor.org/stable/992015 Scientific American Blogs:http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/rosetta-stones/2013/03/28/zonia-baber-the-public-may-be-brought-to-understand-the-importance-of-geography/

More on women in geography and their important role in education: http://www.iswg.org/news-events/practically-all-the-geographers-were-women/

Main Image: Zonia Baber gathering fossils at Mazon Creek, Illinois, 1895. The summer class in Geology, taught by Thomas C. Chamberlin, was the first field class at the University of Chicago to which women were admitted.

Image courtesy University of Chicago Photographic Archive, [apf1-00303], Special Collections Research Center, University of Chicago LibraryLandscape Image: Reproduced from open access article : Geography by Zonia Baber, published in 'The Course of Study’ Vol. 1, No. 8 (Apr., 1901), pp. 704-706. University of Chicago Press http://www.jstor.org/stable/992015 

Ur was an important city-state in ancient Mesopotamia, perhaps best known for the ziggurat monument and Royal Tombs. One of the main periods of excavations from 1922 to 1934 were jointly funded by the British Museum and the University of Pennsylvania, and the story of these early  excavations is often told with reference to director Sir Charles Leonard Woolley, and his assistant Max Mallowan, who would go on to became an important archaeologist in his own right. There is another character however whose role in these excavations was equally important, and that is Katharine Woolley (nee Menke). Katharine was described by fellow trowelblazers  Gertrude Bell as “dangerous” and Agatha Christie as “an extraordinary character” and it is rumoured that Christie based a murder victim in one of her novels on her. Woolley was certainly a woman who made an impression, and her story has more than a little mystery and drama, and also unfortunately tragedy. Katharine was as a student at Oxford, however she left before finishing her degree and worked as a British military nurse. She married her first husband, Lieutenant Colonel Bertram Keeling, in 1919 and travelled with him to Egypt, but after only 6 months of marriage, he committed suicide in the Giza desert. The details surrounding his death are unclear, but this obviously had an impact on Katharine. She resumed her nursing career and ended up visiting the Ur excavations whilst on duty in Baghdad. She attracted the attention of the excavators with her illustration skills, and was invited to join the team. She began working as a field assistant for the project in 1924. Many texts allude incorrectly to the fact that she was present on the Ur excavations solely to accompany her husband, Sir Charles Leonard Woolley, when in fact she found herself there entirely through her own talents. She ended up marrying Leonard for convenience as it was her only option to remain on the dig after the funders expressed discomfort at the thought of an attractive young widow working in the field alone with a team of men. She quickly became ‘second in command’ at the dig, and she was also responsible for the reconstruction of the famous headdress of Queen Pu-abi amongst others. She would go on to lead excavations in the final year of the dig, and played an important role in fundraising and producing press materials for the project. In 1929, Katharine published a book, Adventure Calls, about a woman who pretends to be a man so that she can have a life of excitement and adventure, including joining an archaeological team! Katharine interviewed the young Max Mallowan for his place on the team, and it was also due to Katharine that Agatha Christie was allowed to visit the excavations. Initially the two became good friends, but suffered a falling out when Christie became romantically involved with Mallowan (they would later get married). Although Katharine was married to Leonard, it is suggested that she enjoyed the attention of being the only woman on site and wasn’t pleased when Mallowan directed his attention elsewhere. Christie was not welcome back and Mallowan left the team shortly after. It is these aspects of the story that may be responsible for Katharine’s reputation as being difficult to work with! Sadly her work was overshadowed by this reputation and with speculations about her sexuality/gender, which is rumoured to have been linked to the suicide of her first husband (for a discussion of this see this blog about an unpublished paper on Woolley). More important than the details (confusing as they are) of her personal life, were Katharine’s archaeological illustrations and reconstructions which were critical to publicising and promoting the discoveries at Ur. Without her contributions the importance of the Ur excavations would not have been recognised, and the success of her husband’s career was in no small part due to her work. Of course, there are those among us who prefer to judge her character but what we can see for ourselves - active fieldwork and a fondness for felines, which surely can’t be a bad thing…! [caption id=“attachment_1617” align=“alignnone” width=“580”]Courtesy of the Penn Museum, image no. 191365

More Information:

More Deadly than the Male - Blogpost

Ur of the Chaldees - British Museum Blogpost

Murder in Mesopotamia - Expedition U Penn

Post submitted by Lisa-Marie Shillito

Edited by Brenna

Image: Katharine Woolley and Sheikh Hamoudi Ibn Ibrahim, the excavation’s foreman, sorting finds (1928­–29 season). © Trustees of the British Museum; Second Image:Expedition house and staff, 1928-29. Max Mallowan (third from left), Hamoudi, C. Leonard Wolley, Katherine Wolley, Father Eric R. Burrows. Courtesy of the Penn Museum, image no. 191365. 

Mary Ann Woodhouse, better known as Mrs Gideon Mantell, was born on April 9, 1795. In 1816, she married  surgeon-geologist Gideon Mantell.

In the summer of 1822, during a walk while her husband was visiting a patient, Mary found the first Iguanodon tooth. In her book “The Dinosaur Hunters”, Deborah Cadbury described Mary’s unusual finding:

“As she walked, her eyes were irresistibly drawn to a strange shape in a pile of stones that had been heaped by the side of the road. Picking up the stone, she brushed away the white dust, gently removing any loose rock with her fingers. Gradually a shape emerged never previously seen by human eye. It was very smooth, worn and dark brown, rather like a flattened fragment of a giant tooth.”

Gideon Mantell sent the teeth to Georges Cuvier, who first suggested that the remains were from a rhinoceros, but in a letter from 1824 admitted his mistake and determined that the remains were reptilian and quite possibly belonged to a giant herbivore. A year later, Mantell described them and named them Iguanodon (“iguana tooth”) because their resemblance with  those of living iguanas. The tooth turned out to be around 130 million years old and incredible scientific discovery.

Fossil Iguanodon Tooth, maker unknown. Gift of the Mantell Family, 1930. CC BY-NC-ND licence. Te Papa (GH004839)

Mary helped Mantell illustrating his book on The Fossils of the South Downs (1822). She made over 364 fine lithographs from her husband’s drawings. Etheldred Benett commented to Mantell that with a little practice Mary’s sketching would be ‘stronger and bolder … all that is wanting to make them a great ornament to your work’. Unfortunately, it seems that Mary didn’t contribute to Mantell’s second book of Tilgate Forest fossils.

In  1839, she left her husband and the children remained with their father as was customary at the time.

Gideon Mantell died in 1852 from an opium overdose. Mary died 16 years later.

Sources:

BUREK, C. V. & HIGGS, B. (eds) The Role of Women in the History of Geology. Geological Society, London, Special Publications, 281, 1–8. DOI: 10.1144/SP281.1.

by Holder of the Order of the Blazing Trowel Fernanda Castano

edits by Brenna

Read more on Fernanda’s blog about Mary Ann’s other TrowelBlazing connections!