Topographical and Architectural Documentation of the Underground Cistern on Kaletepe (MSGSÜ/BHT)

One of the most striking results of the 2022 season was the re-discovery of the cave, which was simply defined as a 'cellar' by the researchers at the end of the 1961 excavations (G. Kleiner, “Bericht über die Grabung in Milet im Herbst 1961”, Türk Arkeoloji Dergisi XI-2/1961, 46-48) and an added cistern.

As a result of the cleaning carried out in the cave within two weeks, a total of 12 steps at the entrance and the corridor after it were unearthed in a way to enable progress towards the interior sections. Besides the large 'niches' carved out of the natural bedrock, the most striking point in this formation is the cistern, which is separated from the cave by a brick wall, draws attention with the high-quality mortar on its high walls and the meticulous plaster that can be selected on its very wide dome.

As such, the underground structure is an important part of a large water network consisting of wells of various sizes and several possible cisterns that supplied water to the Kaletepe area from at least the Roman Imperial Period until the late antique period. Documenting the building as it is essential and extremely important in terms of paving the way for archaeological interpretations.

The most important stage of the project to be implemented for this purpose will be the field studies to be carried out in the summer season of 2023. In this context, it is planned to continue studies in the same field with several different experts at the same time in line with the findings and related problematics as a result of the examinations made in 2022. Work in the field will continue with the focus on 3D topographical and architectural documentation. However, it is within the scope of the priority work plan to describe, identify and classify the small archaeological finds obtained from the area in the past years and in the last two years.

In general, the project will consist of three main elements, namely field studies, documentation and depot studies in terms of methodology.

• Field Studies: Systematic cleaning of the area to allow documentation studies.
• Documentation: Measuring, photographing and recording the area in question using modern technological applications, in line with the information obtained from previous excavations and library studies. Documentation work will be carried out in two main focuses: 3D topographic documentation and architectural documentation.
  • a) 3D topographical documentation: The cloud method, which is used in the documentation studies of various cultural and natural heritage sites that need to be protected, is a widely used method in Turkey and the world today. With the terrestrial laser scanning method, millions of 3D point data are obtained as fast and reliable measurements, thus providing the surface geometries of cultural properties.  It is aimed to obtain three-dimensional point cloud data with the terrestrial scanning method of the underground spaces in the study. This work will consist of two phases, namely the field and the office work. The steps of controlling the study area, preparing it for scanning and scanning with a terrestrial laser scanning device will form the field work phase. In the office work phase, the digital data obtained from the terrestrial laser scanner will be transferred to the computerized drawing environment and the point image records obtained with 360-degree rotating camera angles will be converted into digital data by using micro-station and similar programs, and the steps will be interpreted and processed. As a result of the creation of the point cloud data, the geometric shape and dimensions of the area will be documented and this data can be used in possible future projects in the excavation area.
  • b) Architectural documentation: It is planned to create a professional architectural drawing of the area during the field studies. Editing the data of the architectural drawings of the underground and large-scale architectural work area in computer environment is also included in this stage of the studies. The data will be transferred to the database created in ArcGIS by digitizing the data using the AutoCAD program.
• Depot Studies: Descriptions, determinations and classifications of the data obtained as a result of field studies will be carried out in order to present accurate data, with a team of experts in the fields created, in order to serve the archeological science inventory in the short term and in the long term for publication.

The project is supported by the Scientific Research Projects Commission of the Mimar Sinan University of Fine Arts.