Restoration / Architecture · Design and Construction
Services · Antakya · Hatay
Excavation Survey
When a building has collapsed entirely, a conventional measured survey is impossible. An excavation survey documents the foundation traces, floor levels and material remains revealed during controlled, layered debris removal, using archaeological excavation discipline.
What is an excavation survey?
An excavation survey is the scaled documentation of the traces surviving at ground level in a building of which nothing remains standing. There is no wall to measure; what is measured are the foundation walls, wall bases, floor levels, courtyard paving and the material remains within the debris.
The method comes from archaeology. The debris is not cleared wholesale with machinery but removed in a controlled, layered manner. The architectural data revealed in each layer is measured and photographed before removal proceeds. A layer once removed cannot be brought back — which is why the order of work, not its speed, is what matters.
Most of the work we have carried out in the Antakya urban conservation area since the February 2023 earthquakes is of this kind. It is not a damage assessment in the conventional sense but the systematic recording of the material and documentary traces of a lost cultural property.
What is documented?
The sheets produced cover the cadastral situation, site plan, excavation plan and longitudinal and cross site sections. On the excavation plan, the approximate plot boundary, the excavated area, the rubble heap and the building traces uncovered are marked with separate notations.
A separate material inventory is kept: ashlar, rubble stone, timber joist traces, fragments of cement-tile flooring and ornamental elements are each identified. Original elements suitable for reuse are safely stacked on site — these return in the reconstruction.
Because the sections show floor levels and the relationship of the layers below ground, they become decisive in establishing storey heights at the restitution stage.
How does it differ from an archaeological excavation?
The purpose differs. An archaeological excavation aims to uncover and date an unknown settlement. An excavation survey gathers data in order to re-establish the lost geometry of a known building; its output is not so much scientific publication as the scaled drawings that underpin restitution and reconstruction projects.
The methodological discipline, however, is shared: layered progress, and the measurement, photography and recording of every finding in situ before removal. If an unexpected archaeological find appears during excavation, work is halted and the situation reported to the relevant museum and to the board.
In a layered city such as Antakya this possibility is not remote; traces of an earlier period may emerge beneath the parcel. Work is therefore carried out under museum supervision and board permit.
Anastylosis: raising scattered pieces again
Anastylosis is the re-erection of a collapsed building by collecting and reassembling its own scattered pieces. The term, Greek in origin, is used in conservation in the sense given it by Article 15 of the Venice Charter, and it carries limits of its own.
The ideal condition is that a large number of the monument’s pieces survive and that the position of each within the building can be established. The binding provision of the Charter is this: any additions used in the reassembly must be minimal and recognisable. Where very little original material survives, anastylosis should not be attempted — to do so anyway is to undertake reconstruction knowingly.
Being recognisable and being obtrusive are not the same thing. Where the contrast of colour and texture is exaggerated, the visual integrity of the architectural element is lost. A reintegration succeeds aesthetically when it helps the form to be read, does not obtrude at a general glance, and yet can be told apart with the naked eye at close range.
In the parcels we work on in Antakya, anastylosis in the strict sense is rarely at issue — but the same logic applies. When original ashlar jambs, thresholds and terracotta pipes recovered in the excavation are numbered and their positions established, they return to the new building not as formal decoration but as pieces whose place we know.
In-situ conservation and protective cover
The principle is that walls, floors, vaults and other architectural elements exposed by excavation should be consolidated and conserved where they stand. Materials and details that cannot safely be left in the open — mudbrick, mosaic floors, tiled walls, frescoes — can be protected by bringing them under a roof.
Mudbrick is the most fragile case: left exposed, it softens and dissolves in rain, cracks in the sun and is worn to dust by the wind. Earlier practice tried coating it with bitumen or rendering it in cement mortar; being incompatible with mudbrick in colour and texture, those interventions have been abandoned. The right answer is continuous maintenance with a renewable mud-mortar render, as has been done in Anatolia for thousands of years.
In designing a protective roof, ambitious solutions that take on a monumental character of their own are avoided. The visual effect the roof will have within the site must be considered in advance; a protective cover should not upstage the thing it protects.
Elements exposed to the weather that cannot be conserved where they stand are moved to a museum. Article 8 of the Venice Charter accepts that sculpture, painting and ornament may be removed for this purpose where it is the only means of ensuring their preservation.
Legal basis
Excavation surveys are carried out within the framework of Article 16 of the Venice Charter and the ICOMOS Charter for the Protection and Management of the Archaeological Heritage. Debris removal is subject to permission from the Regional Conservation Board and is carried out under supervision.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is an excavation survey?
When a building has collapsed entirely, a conventional measured survey is impossible. An excavation survey documents the foundation traces, floor levels and material remains revealed during controlled, layered debris removal, using archaeological excavation discipline.
What should I do before the debris is cleared?
Before touching the debris, speak to a specialist and wait for the board permit. Uncontrolled clearance carries away the foundation traces, original stones and floor levels along with it — and these are the evidence on which the restitution would rest. Evidence lost this way cannot be recovered by any later document.
How long does an excavation survey take?
It depends on the size of the parcel and the density of the debris. On a courtyard house parcel the fieldwork can take a few weeks, because progress is set by the pace of documentation rather than that of the machinery. Drawing production is added on top of this.
Can the original stones recovered be reused?
Yes, and from a conservation standpoint this is the preferred course. Sound ashlar blocks, jambs, sills and ornamental elements are separated, labelled and stacked on site, and returned as far as possible to their original positions in the reconstruction. This is one of the most valuable steps in preserving the material continuity of the building.
Why is the debris removed layer by layer?
Because each layer is the record of a different event. Reading the strata of fire, collapse and reoccupation separately — stratigraphy — shows in what order things happened to the building. Wholesale clearance by machine erases that order irreversibly. In controlled removal, the architectural evidence appearing in each layer is measured and photographed before clearance proceeds, and finds such as ceramics, inscriptions and architectural fragments are recorded together with the layer they came from.
Is permission needed to begin an excavation survey?
Yes. Clearing fills that contain archaeological evidence is carried out as a scientific excavation under expert supervision, and permission must be obtained from the Regional Conservation Board before excavation or clearance begins. The condition before clearance is itself documented with photographs and drawings. Debris removed without permission weakens not only the evidence but the legal footing of everything that follows.
Source
The principal reference for the theoretical framework and technical definitions on this page is Zeynep Ahunbay, Tarihi Çevre Koruma ve Restorasyon (Historic Environment Conservation and Restoration), YEM Yayın, Istanbul 2009. The principles also rest on the Venice Charter (1964) and Turkish Law No. 2863 on the Conservation of Cultural and Natural Property. The fieldwork and the assessments concerning Antakya are our own.