The First Season of Rescue Excavation at Çiftlik (Sinop)
Work commenced in August 1994 on a new archaeological rescue project to survey, excavate and protect the remains of a Classical and Byzantine site at Çiftlik, near Sinop on the Turkish coast of the Black Sea (Pl. XXIX (a)). The work was a collaborative project including staff from the Sinop Museum and the British Institute of Archaeology at Ankara, and staff and students from the University of Warwick. The British Institute of Archaeology at Ankara has adopted this as a new “in-house” project, run in collaboration with Mr. İsmail Tatlıcan, Director of the Sinop Museum.The remains at Çiftlik lie at the mouth of a valley on the west side of the great bay in the Black Sea which runs south of the peninsula on the isthmus on which the city of Sinop stands. The remains of two buildings were studied in 1994. These buildings were originally constructed on silty soil consisting of winter wash material which was deposited at the valley bottom over a long period of time prior to the Classical occupation of the site. The project is very much concerned with rescue, since the coastline in this area is being seriously eroded by the sea. At least 1·5 metres of the church (the south building) has been eroded since 1990, and the low shelf in the water beside what survives has underwater remains from various Classical and Byzantine buildings.