"Despite the oddities and annoyances this volume is of interest to heritage professionals and site managers as it gives a ‘real’ voice to the local community. Although we engage local communities as ‘stakeholders’ in contemporary approaches to site management, they rarely feature so prominently within project outputs, and are perhaps not always as ‘heard’ as Dural."
- Louise Cooke, Conservation and Management of Archaeological Sites
"The memoir shows the power of educating local people and explaining to them the methods used and results achieved...It is obvious that the opinions of archaeologists regarding this book will be diverse. However, it is a brave step by Ian Hodder to involve local ‘voices’ in the process of archaeological site management. It offers a very different perspective for viewing archaeological sites. For Dural it is ‘better to have one uneducated friend than to have a thousand educated enemies’, which seems to describe the book in an ironic way. Although his voice is ‘uneducated’ it is a ‘friend’s’ voice, which needs to be heard."
- Gaigysyz Joraev, Conservation and Management of Archaeological Sites
"...the text helps to unsettle the very boundaries of archaeology...At face level, it is mostly an engaging story about someone’s life told in the first person. But
at a more significant level — for the archaeological reader — it reveals the interconnections between archaeology and the rest of life (money, friendship, family, etc.) which are so easily elided from most archaeological books. Sadrettin Dural has opened a door on the full and vibrant context of the archaeological work at Çatalhöyük in one of the most honest and compelling ways I have ever read. It is perhaps this honesty, more than anything, which
we might learn from. I suggest the reader approaches the book with this in mind; not as an alternative voice, but as a radical one that transgresses boundaries we normally never cross. It reminds us, in a very real way, that archaeology is a way of life, not simply a science of the human past."
- Gavin Lucas, Conservation and Management of Archaeological Sites
"This book is short and easy to read…Whilst an account of one individual’s relationship with a single archaeological site, this book serves to raise our awarenessof the different perspectives local communities bring to the archaeological past."
- Marilyn Truscott, Aboriginal History
"A stream-of-consciousness memoir by former taxi driver Sadrettin Dural gives readers the chance to see the site though the eyes of the local who knows it best...Dural's narrative careens wildly from accounts of his job showing "the mound" to visitors, to hilarious romantic escapades and the business woes of his Çatalhöyük cafe. But the story always returns to his Neolithic ancestors and the
yatirs, or ghosts, who are said to inhabit the mound. By the last few pages, it's clear that Dural is Çatalhöyük's flesh-and-blood
yatir, a constant presence on the mound, likely to endure long after the last excavation trench is filled. "
- Eric A. Powell, Archaeology Magazine
"
Sadrettin’s is not a success story. It does not chart the
successful education and empowerment of one of those many that have for
so long been overlooked at the edges, but actually at the center of
archaeology. It could hardly be said that Sadrettin’s story charts the
end of centuries of colonial archaeological manipulation and silencing.
His story is at once amusing, uplifting, tragic and unending. But in
providing us with his voice, Sadrettin has opened up new possibilities
for dialogue. I have learned a lot from him in terms of how Çatalhöyük
might be managed and interpreted, and in terms of how archaeologists
might work with local communities. I hope that others too will gain
from reading his words."
- From the Foreword by Ian Hodder