As a modern science, archaeology seeks its subject by digging through layers of earth. What is uncovered becomes data to be examined, evaluated, and interpreted. In excavations that stretch over many years, the very first task each season is to clear the site: weeds are pulled, the ground is opened, and the digging resumes where it left off the year before. The first sacrifice in the process of turning the past into data is the wild grass that has grown on that soil for millennia. Yet these weeds—dismissed as waste to be cleared away—may once have lived alongside the very remains unearthed beneath.

This work was created during the Van Çavuştepe Urartian Necropolis excavation, where I took part as a photographer. After the site was cleared in the early days of the dig, the wild grasses gathered and discarded from the area were photographed under natural light within the excavation grounds.