Marie-Laure Chambrade | Flying Under a Screen of Clouds

Before we begin, I would like to remind you What Yorco Rowan will give the next lecture Regarding the exhibition on June 26. This reading will be dedicated to the Black Desert of Jordan. which is a section of the exhibition that I will mention only tonight, because I would like to summarize the main ideas what I wanted to share through the exhibition. To this end, I will refer to the content of the exhibition itself, Of course, but also on a few additional portraits pioneers and historic moments. Let's start with someone you won't see in the exhibition, The exhibition focuses on the pioneers of aerial archaeology. But as a Frenchwoman presenting the history of aerial archaeology In western Asia, it's almost my duty at least mention Antoine Poidobar, who was one of the pioneers who established the discipline. The title of this reading is a translation one of the techniques he experimented with in 1929, the flight beneath the screen of clouds soaring beneath a canopy of clouds, As shown in this image. The conditions were those of the beginning of the day, in November. after heavy rains, with a low cloud cover and fly beneath the screen, parallel to the ground. Apparently, these conditions were ideal for seeing the archaeological mountains of the Syrian desert but not the easiest to reproduce, as you can imagine. But it is precisely through this kind of experimentation which, during the early days of aerial archaeology, The discipline has become useful and successful. Aerial archaeology is a little over a century old. From afar, we discovered more archaeological sites with aerial photography with other soil survey methods. It is incomparable. But that is not the only purpose of aerial archaeology, Far from it. It is also an inevitable asset for archaeology in general. and for the management of the inheritance, and an essential tool for the archaeology of the site. I will return to this later. To understand the meaning of aerial archaeology, I'm going to start with a quote from Crawford, pioneer of aerial archaeology in Europe and the so-called father of the discipline. I found it difficult to express in the appropriate words The importance of aerial photographs for the archaeological study. They provide a new research tool comparable only to that provided by excavation. They are second only to excavation in the results they will achieve. Their inventions will also be valuable for archaeology. those of the telescope for astronomy. They are not a substitute for fieldwork. but they are the most powerful ally archaeologists in the field In fact, a prominent field archaeologist and a former director of the Institute, William Sumner said that when he saw an aerial photograph from the place that Gerster had taken when the sun was low in the sky, He saw and understood more in ten minutes What he had done in ten years regular work on the ground. That is how aerial archaeology works May be a powerful ally for field archaeologists. Aerial archaeology on the ground could not have existed without pioneers, visionaries who saw the potential from these images and had ideas to produce them, to access them. At each major stage of the discipline In West Asia, you will find pioneers in Isaac's time, in the 1930s the beginning of aerial archaeology then in the 1990s, with the development of technologies from the 1990s onwards and very recently, toward the future using drones and artificial intelligence. This is one of the reasons why The exhibition is aimed at pioneers. Let us begin with James Henry Breasted, Who took the first aerial photographs? for Isaac from the Egyptian Eric Tange in 1920. Only one year after founding Isaac, This clearly illustrates that aerial photography It is based on the story of Isaac, and I will return to this soon. But for now, I would like to emphasize pioneers who may be less well known A photo of Giza was taken in 1904 by Edouard Spelterini who was a Swiss pioneer of the balloon and aerial photography. In Sudan, a few years later, Henri Wellcome, a philanthropist Who excavated Jebel Moya? decided to use a kite to take photos of the ongoing excavation. These are probably the most recent photos. from an excavation in North Africa. Jordan's Black Desert is well known thanks to photographs. published during the 1920s and which had been taken by a British pilot. But several years earlier, The Australian Army flew into the Black Desert. He took some photos in 1918. They are less well known, but the Australian Army and the German army took some wonderful photos during World War I. Within the scope of the exhibition, you may have noticed that every two weeks, we highlight a pioneering woman in the photos of the Australian Army on Isaac's social networks. Tasha Walderstrasse has discovered this wonderful trio and I'll publish them soon. Tonight, I would like to honor Marie Bailey. who was a pioneering airplane pilot. She flew from England to South Africa in 1928. During this journey, she met him. with the archaeologist Gertrude Caton-Thompson and three years later, together with the archaeologist Elinor White-Garner, They monitored the Harga Oasis. for two weeks with an airplane. It was published in the Journal of Antiquity in 1931. With these examples, we have seen since the very beginning of aerial photography, Many types of devices are used for the aerial camera or the photographers. Balloons, airplanes, yachts, and drones of today. In the exhibition, I have chosen to highlight the flying devices rather than the techniques for taking photos or the resolution of the photos or if the oblique or vertical photos They are better than the others. Why? Because the images prizes thanks to a pole kept on the ground, with sensors or satellites They have very different sizes. And this interweaving of scales is crucial. to understand the place. A settlement does not exist alone. It is a part of a network, a landscape and it is connected to distant places and to other landscapes. But let's now begin with the site size using the example of Megiddo. In Megiddo, during the 1930s, They begin to use a sensor. to capture the details of the ongoing excavation. And it is still a very common practice to use a pole for the same purpose and to obtain very high details on the excavation architecture to produce accurate plans. During the preparation of the exhibition, We were very happy. to discover the first balloon used in Megiddo in 1929. A flight, two good photos, and the objectives were achieved. These two photos are the beginnings. for several years of use with more powerful balloons. In a letter from Guy, Who was the president of the exhibition? At the time, a correspondence with Breasted, We learned that Guy wanted to try to want to fly himself with a good balloon on the architecture of the exhibition. Breasted does not agree with that. which is perfectly understandable. Why would he have wanted to do that? Because the balloon was difficult to maneuver and, in particular, it was a bit complicated to keep it at the same height to achieve good coverage of the architecture. But in the end, they managed to do it. and, for example, in the center, You can see part of the site. under the excavation with the architecture very visible. They also went even higher, about 400 meters above ground to get a photo for the entire month of Tel Megiddo. In the center photo, You can see the shadow of the balloon. With regard to Guy's publication and his correspondence with Breasted, They made an excellent use of it of these photos. They managed to complete the plans. They started in the field and completed the plans with the photo in the office. They also brought the photos into the field. so that they may stand out among the different layers where they were excavated. It is a tradition that is still in use in Megiddo, where they are using it now modern and digital techniques, with drones, to take aerial views of excavation and produce wonderful 3D models. The balloon was not the preferred device to take aerial photos in archaeology. The balloon was preferred over the long duration. from the aerial photograph in the context of archaeology. You can see here, in 1967, Robert McCormick Adams former director of the Institute who has experienced The use of a balloon in Nippur and Uruk. Below, you can see photos from Nippur during the excavation. According to Adams's notebook entries, We can also learn that the balloon is not always easy to handle. We can have sales that are too strong you are not strong enough, On the contrary. But it's always the setup who was preferred instead of the ball. Quails are also something what we can bring to the field when we cannot use drones, which can still be useful today. Of course, when we can use the drones And for UAVs, we prefer to use them. And there are digital cameras that allow us to take a large quantity of photos high resolution. Here, you can see the excavation. to Suresa and the architectural plans that can be produced or completed From these photos, how they did it to Megiddo at that time. Let us now change the size of our study. During the 1920s and 1930s, the development of archaeology As a discipline, its origins and photographic methods and surveillance have truly carried out through the use of airplanes. Aircraft also allow for to cover larger areas, The purpose is not the same. We are here to conduct a surveillance. and a study of the landscape. And thanks to the on-site expedition In Iran, we can see what we have in Isaac's archive A wonderful documentation. Schmidt was truly methodical. when he had prepared the various flights They drew by hand maps of flight routes. They recorded every flight and the details of the car. They also looked the nature of the aircraft, like here a sea, or else remnants and ruins. Everything has been recorded. Each interesting feature was photographed, with explanations on the way of taking the photo, the altitude, if they were oblique, verticals, etc. Even if Schmidt was the leader of the excavation of an important site like Persepolis of Rey, What is interesting it's that he had also great interest in the area around this site. For example, he carried out a mapping and a guard from the plane of Persepolis. In 1937, they stole several times on the Persepolis plane. They conducted a surveillance. of the entire aircraft, from one to the other to see those long shelves on one side and on the other He recorded each ruin, each remaining part of the airplane, And he took some photos of each site. They gave him a number. To be sure, and they explain How the photos were taken, altitude, etc. On the airplane itself, During the surveillance, he was not merely interested in the main site, but also by hydraulic features, like Madame Oudbandy-Meymane, Located to the south of the Persepolis plane. For me, it was already landscape archaeology Schmitt already had the intention to hear the big picture, as Poidebard did in Syria When he was writing the novel Limes. Let's continue with the archaeology of the landscape and its pioneers. Here is a small piece from the archive of Robert Marconiq-Adams, former director of Isaac As I've already said. I can also see McGuire Gibson, Professor of Mesopotamian archaeology. During the 1960s and 1970s, One could say that they were the early years of landscape archaeology It was an era when most of the work was handmade. For someone like me, who uses a geographic system and who does space archaeology thanks to a computer It's incredible to see that they did it by hand, like the distribution of height sites and their assignments What is also incredible it is that in 1917, Gibson introduced the use of computers He asked his students to use computers to learn the new practice of space archaeology. Then came the 1990s And there was truly a turning point for space archaeology. A turning point that Tony Wilkinson has benefited from the foundation Camel Lab in 1998. That's an interesting quote. a conference on space archaeology published in 2002. Discipline is now clearer. on his target, that is to say, read and understand the landscapes of the past and integrate this information with other forms of evidence of surveillance and excavation. For far too long, Space archaeology has been seen as a separate specialty with its focus on discovery new sites, but without the use of information generated. Space archaeology is now an important part space archaeology who assists in the research and offers better validity for conservation and management strategy. I will return to this later. In the exhibition, we see the second section dedicated to the founding of the Camel and to the introduction geographic data system space archaeology and to space archaeology, as well as the importance from the first wave declassification of images of Cold War satellites. Wilkinson was a visionary. regarding the potential of these images when he founded Camel. The objective of the Camel Lab was to collect as many images as possible. We have changed the scale during the Cold War, almost all of Western Asia was covered by satellites who were taking pictures of the place. They were declassified in 1995. And ever since, we have been using them to study the ancient landscape. In 1990, thanks to the development from the GIS, we were able to assemble various types easier documentation like old maps or the recordings what we do on the ground with a GPS or a total station. What we can see in this section lies in the importance of the fact where these images were taken before or at the beginning great changes in the landscape of Western Asia. I am returning to the inheritance and the importance of the heritage and of ancient imagination Who has preserved images of the past? who may have disappeared today. Here is the example of the Temple of Belle in Palmyra beautifully captured by Prado Bar during the 1930s. In the top right image, We can still see the Temple of Beauty, but you can notice to the south of the Temple, the old part of the town of Tannemore has disappeared. The landscape has already changed. for several decades In 2022, The temple is no longer there. because it was destroyed in 2015 by ISIS. These preserved images of the past are very important for Monitor and damage or destroy the heritage. It is an important part. of the history of archaeology. When we prepare an exhibition, We must make choices. This part was too important to be presented in the exhibition but I am happy to be able to mention it tonight. We are arriving now at the latest development in aerial archaeology and to the new methodology who will bring aerial archaeology in the future. I'm talking about artificial intelligence and deep learning. Here is an example of a preservation project from large-scale inheritance. They used deep learning to monitor the damage in Afghanistan. They succeeded quickly to recognize on the images the sites that have been recently recruited The Camel's Laboratory began also to develop recently deep learning One of the centers, since its creation was at the forefront aerial archaeology and the archaeology of damage. I would like to mention That is important. to think of our children when presenting the past to the general public. It was a great pleasure. to prepare a book for children with the French illustrator, Jérôme Agostini It is available for free online Do not hesitate to download it and to share it with your neighbors. It's for the children, but I am sure that adults They can learn a lot from it. I invite everyone to look at him. Thank you for your attention. We haven't tried yet the pigeon in aerial archaeology, but some have done it. Thank you.