Archaeological Photography – Digital Symbolism

When looking back that this lecture, I am still not sure what “symbolism” has to do with digital cameras, but it was nice to move from film to digital format as that is what I use (and I think most ordinary people use) now (there are probably some real professionals who still like to use film).  That said, I did enjoy learning about film and working with it (film sort of has a romantic feel).  This lecture basically just introduced us to digital cameras and what they can do and I will relate that in this post.

We were told that (as we can see) digital cameras keep improving their megapixel capabilities but the peak will be somewhere around 35 megapixels with most cameras peaking somewhere around 25.  I went this morning to look at digital cameras on the market to see where they are and most of the high-end cameras are around 14-16 megapixels.  However, if you have 3-4 thousand dollars to throw down for a camera, you can get some in the high 20’s.  The highest I saw was Nikon D800 that is about $3000 and offers a surprising 36.3 megapixels!

I think the reason we were told that the peak would be somewhere around 35 was that there is only so much information you can put into a certain space.  Another reason might be that resolution, which is measured by pixels per inch (ppi), is what everyone wants.  However, the higher you go the greater the space needed to store the image.

Because of the space problem, photos are often compressed.  TIFF is a format of files that are not compressed.  JPEG, by contrast, is a compression format that balances, more or less efficiently, subtle graduations of tones of a larger size.

Often, on digital cameras you will find settings that you might not know what they mean.  “P” is a setting that you can program (such as for changing the film speed).  “Tv” is a setting for time.  “Av” is a setting for aperture.  “M” is a manual setting.  “A-Dep” is a setting for automatic depth of field.  “C1” and “C2” are custom settings.  If you want to customize a setting for colder temperatures one trick you might try is to point the camera at a white piece of paper and tell the camera to use this.  You would use that custom setting for a scene with multiple light source types.

Egyptian Objects – Influence

Who influences whom?  Does the center of a civilization influence the periphery or does the periphery influence the center?  This post will review the core of the discussion.

We were told that the first thing we need to do is reverse the expected.  If we expect that Egypt influenced Nubia and the Levant (etc.) then we need to first try to see if Kerma influences exist in Egypt (for example).  The reason for this is that it has often been found that it is the periphery that develops the ideas that the center then adapts.   (Although it seems that the Ammonites (in modern-day Jordan) really did adopt Egyptian art-forms to express kingship (as also did the Hebrews, at least in the form of seals), the same might not be true of other areas.)

This is probably a good rule of thumb for any endeavor.  Always explore the opposite of what you expect (assume).  Try to disprove what you believe to be true.

So how does one do this?  By knowing the archaeological data before, during, and after the period you are studying in both the periphery and the center, you can then compare data.  If you discover that there is evidence for the existence of the thing under study in either the periphery or the center, when it does not exist in the other, you might have the answer (or at the very least a start toward the answer) to the question you are trying to solve.  At some point influence ends, and this is also important to determine.

What can complicate the process is when there exists a network of centers (such as is found in Egypt at various periods).

In Egypt, there are traditionally two major kingdoms (Upper and Lower) that each have centers of civilization.  One of the questions that archaeologists are trying to discover is which of these kingdoms influenced the other.  Because there is a different social profile in both regions, it has been a complex and interesting study that is still underway.

Managing Museums – I.T.

“The great thing about technology, is that it is ALWAYS letting you down!” – I.T. guy

We were told that there are basically four areas of management when it comes to museums (although I am sure this might be true in other areas): management (the “boring” parts that make everything else efficient), collections, marketing, and product (the part for visitors).  I.T. (“Information Technology”) is involved in all four parts.  This post will be about I.T. in each of these four areas of management in museums.

There are three areas where I.T. can help management.  The first area is not a surprise: finance.  I.T. makes it possible to be more accurate with less people to monitor cash flow, make predictions, work with balance sheets, ledgers, and profit and loss accounts.  The second area is in systems that support governance.  These help manage teams, health and safety issues, legal compliance issues, and intranet, which helps people know what they should be doing and how to do it.  The third area that I.T. helps management is in systems that analyze the audience.  I.T. can help management see patterns of visitation, patterns that visitors spend their money, and directed audience research.

There are also three areas where I.T. can help collections.  The first area is probably the most obvious: tracking.  I.T. is important so that staff can know what they have and where it is.  The object’s title, acquisition, location, movement, and condition are tracked.  The second area is in research.  This allows work to be done once instead of repeatedly.  Research might include an object’s identification, description (using keywords to make it easy to find again), materials, data, and comparisons.  The third area that I.T. can help collections is in images by providing simple logistics and also helping staff to see the strength of the antiquities schemes.  I.T. can help with identification of objects, images help show the condition of the objects, images can be used in research, and images can be used by the public.  All three areas can now be piped into websites (if desired – the I.T. guy who was doing the lecture felt strongly that this sort of information is not to be guarded and stored away but to be shared with humanity, freely).

There were three areas where I.T. can help marketing (I guess he liked “three’s”) that were discussed as well.  The first area was in dealing with audience through tracking demographics, tracking how the visitors knew about the museum (geographical, chronological, and material method used in communicating this data to the future visitor), and also in tracking the non-visitor (who didn’t come).  The second area is in reaction.  It was said that the value for money comes at 80% satisfaction.  However, much more can be learned; such as what did they like, what did they not like, was there a warm welcome, etc.  The third area is behavior.  There are always areas of the museum that are not visited often and it is important to know why.  So visitors are tracked to find out what they did, how long they did it, and what they used (such as the café, gift shop, etc.).  Without this sort of data, all decisions made in marketing (and really for the whole management team) are just stabs in the dark.

That last area where I.T. can help is in the product where he presented four (yes, finally not “three”) ways that I.T. is useful.  First, I.T. can help build kiosks (which are interactive devises in galleries) that should be fun (not boring databases) and should be designed specifically for that specific gallery.  You should think about having a computer animated “guide” that visitors can access.  It should be possible for the visitor to change the language.  Be sure to target your audience carefully.  Second, I.T. can help people imagine the past by providing CGI 3D reconstructions, animations, and even blends of animation with reality.  Movies can show an archaeological site’s development.  Third, I.T. can provide special effects to tug on emotions such as audio/visual presentations, immerse the visitor in an experience, and even holographic presentations.  Lighting, video projections on mist, figures can appear in space, are all things that I.T. can do.  And finally, I.T. can provide hand-held fun through sound wands, PDA’s, and even now provide wireless presentations for mobile phones (such as podcasts, smart phone apps, etc).   After all, you not only want people to come, but you want them to come back.

Some final thoughts that he gave us were that I.T. doesn’t have to cost a fortune.  However, I.T. is an essential part of any museum and should be given more thought.  The museum is a brand and I.T. helps to communicate that brand to the world.  I.T. can help with website because this is the brand and it should not be done ad-hoc as it speaks to the world the quality of your museum.  You should be able to communicate that you offer something unique.

Personal Update

 To all my faithful blog readers (all six of you),

It has been over a year since my last post and I thought that before I start in on it again, you might like to know where I have been and what I have been doing (if not, just skip this post).

Last November, I received my MA in Egyptian Archaeology (and so will be updating my profile shortly).  I have written a book and am currently searching for an agent who can help me be successful in that arena.  I am considering a PhD on the American side of the “pond” (it was simply too hard to be away from my family last year…can’t do it again).  Also, my wife and I are being considered for a post in Kenya at a school there.  I will keep you updated on this (which way we end up going).

UCL was a fantastic educational experience (which I hope to continue to share with you in the upcoming blogs).  I am very pleased with my dissertation (in the UK system they call the MA paper a “dissertation” where in America it is called a “thesis”…in the UK system the PhD paper is called a “thesis” and in America it is called a “dissertation”…just to confuse all of us I think).  I believe that much of the research I did for that will show up in my life’s work.  Currently, I am in the process of finishing up two articles (one scholarly and the other popular) that I will be submitting and will keep you updated on.

That’s enough on me.

As always, I enjoy reading your comments (although there are not many for me to read) and would love to discuss things with you (even if slightly off the topic).

Thanks for following and reading what I post (it makes the time seem less of a “waste” when I know someone read what I wrote).

Managing Archaeological Sites – Cultural Landscapes and Tourism

Often tourism is held up as the reason local populations should want to preserve an archaeological site.  But in some cases tourism has actually been the downfall of the archaeological site.  An interesting case is the Banaue Rice Terraces in the Philippines.  This post will look briefly at some of the things that were discussed in class concerning the protection, recognition, and management of cultural landscapes with regards to the affects tourism.

When should a landscape be set aside as a site to be protected?  UNESCO says that it should when it is demonstrated to have “outstanding universal value”.  But what does this mean?  Some of the criteria for a site to be declared of “outstanding universal value” are that it is a “masterpiece of human creative genius”, that it “becomes a unique (or at least an) exceptional testimony to a culture or tradition that is living or has disappeared”, that it is an “outstanding example of a type that illustrates significant history”, etc. 

The Banaue Rice Terraces in the Philippines were declared a “World Heritage Site” (although sites like Wikipedia claim that the rice terraces of Banaue were not actually included).  The Rice Terraces have been a source of pride for the Filipino people who sometimes even call it the “Eighth Wonder of the World”.  They are located primarily in the mountains of Ifugao where they are built into the side of the mountain (if you haven’t seen pictures I highly recommend googling them).   However, today they are almost all gone directly due to their receiving this designation.  What when wrong?

According to the story in our lecture, they are just one example of “World Heritage” status gone arye.  Apparently, when the status designation was explained to the local populace, they were given the impression that tourism would increase, which would be a good thing for them.  As tourist numbers did begin to increase the local village had a problem – there were no hotels for the tourists to stay in.  Local people opened their homes at first but soon industrious individuals began to build hotels.  Soon a local tourist infrastructure emerged.  The problem?  The local people found it to be easier to work in the tourist industry rather than on the rice terraces.  Where once they had to work it for food, now they had money from tourism to buy food.  As a result, the terraces fell into disrepair and have begun to erode at an alarming rate.  As the terraces began to disappear, so too did the tourists.

In this case (and others like it) tourism was not a blessing but a plague.

This case is not an isolated one.  Angkor Wat and other sites have faced similar issues.  Thus, when preparing to manage a site, it is important to think through the problems that might arise from the increase in tourism so that problems like the one in the Philippines can be avoided.

Archaeology and Education – Learning from Objects

Archaeologists are detectives.  That is one of the appeals of the discipline.  It is, however, an unfortunate state of reality that the public sees archaeologists as treasure hunters.  The two tasks could not be further from each other.  Treasure hunters seek to find objects for their monetary value.  Archaeologists seek to learn from objects.  (The fact that archaeologists must also seek the objects for study might be where the confusion comes in.)  This post will discuss how to learn from objects as discussed in our class – Archaeology and Education.

To the archaeologist, objects have value not in the material they are made out of but in the information they can relate about the past.  An archaeologist is just as excited about an object made from clay as they are about one made from gold.  Both contain information that needs to be extracted that can help us understand the past better.  An archaeologist doesn’t care about the value of the material because the archaeologist would never dream of “selling” the object.  Its worth is far beyond any amount of money – as it is irreplaceable.  (In a much later post I will discuss the topic of the illegal antiquities trade as part of a culture heritage lecture.)  The information contained is not duplicated in any other object.  Each object has its value in this way.  A group of related objects also has a value.  And any object connected with its original context has an even higher value (something illicit diggers fail to understand).  The task of the archaeologist is to educate the public regarding this. 

It is also important to get adults and children to think from an archaeologist’s point of view rather than from a historian’s.  What is the difference, you might ask?  (And just by asking the question the point is made.)  An archaeologist deals on the level of evidence.  The historian deals on the level of interpretation of the evidence.  Both work with evidence (and both can be the same person).  However, while interpretation is important for presentation reasons, it is still (at least in some part) speculation.  Interpretation depends on a paradigm to interpret.  This falls into the realm of theory (which is constantly changing as ideas change).  The paradigm is just a tool to work with to help in interpretation (very much like a pair of glasses that one might put on to see through).  The public needs to understand that what is “fact” is not the interpretation but the actual evidence upon which the interpretation is based.  The public must also understand the bias (good or bad) of the paradigm used for that interpretation.

One way to help in this might be to have our historians write in a different way by presenting the evidence that they are using to interpret and to explain why their interpretations were made the way they were by revealing the paradigm used.  Another way might be to teach the public to be the detective themselves and to recognize the difference between evidence and interpretation.

Objects can help in this educating process.  Dr. Corbishley suggested a few games that could be used.  One, he called the “Skeleton game”.  In this game a person is selected at random from a group.  They are made to stand before the group for “investigation”.  Purely through observation, the group must try to “discover” all that can be learned from this person (as if the person were buried and found in their present condition).  The teacher (archaeologist) guides the questions.  The group should notice material (metal eyelets on shoes for example), height, girth, distinguishing features, etc (the evidence part) and try to work out who this person might have been or done from only the evidence available (the interpretation part).

Another game might be to present “odd” objects to the group (trying to pick unfamiliar objects so that the group would not already know what it was).  The group could then try to work out the objects use (interpretation) from whatever clues they might be able to discover (evidence) before the teacher (archaeologist) reveals the “truth” about the object.  In this way it should become clear how different evidence is from interpretation (as quite often the interpretation is not close to the actual reality because of lack of available information/evidence).  Buildings are objects as well (albeit usually unmovable) and can also be used in this way. 

It seems that a more responsible way to treat history would be to look at the past from evidence instead of from interpretation by recognizing and stating the limitations of evidence.  (All of us have learned something in school that was taught to us as “fact” only to discover later that it was not actually true but only someone’s interpretation.)  To accomplish this will certainly involve a lot more work.  Books will have to be written and classes redesigned.  It might even be necessary to completely rethink how history classes are taught and consider having a class on archaeology instead of history or to find a way to combine the two in a clear way.  Part of this will also certainly involve reeducating the public concerning the role of an archaeologist (for treasure is out there to be found – just not the type of treasure that is in most people’s minds).  To not do this is certainly irresponsible.

Culture Heritage – Heritage and Destruction

Is there a difference in the destruction of the Great Wall of China verses the destruction of the Berlin Wall?  When is it ok to destroy heritage?  Does restoration justify destruction?  This post will explore some of these issues.

Everyone knows that archaeological excavation is destructive in nature.  The Rose Theatre here in London had its excavation stopped by the Arts because they feared the destruction of whatever remains there are of this important theatre where Shakespeare walked.  What remained?  Foundations only.  However, the remains of these types of theatres are very rare and the excavation of the remains would have provided much needed information about them.  For example, it is still not known how people reached the upper levels.  They obviously had to use stairs or ladders, but there is no physical evidence for either.  The excavation of the Rose might have provided that by revealing the existence of the suspected stair towers.  (For a modern example of these supposed towers see the reconstruction of the Globe Theatre on London’s River Walk).  Instead the remains were buried under dirt, concrete, and water.  You can visit the site but all you will see is a pond.

Most people (outside of the Pinheads in the Arts who stopped the Rose excavations) understand that responsible excavation is necessary destruction.  But what about the destruction of modern buildings to reconstruct the ancient as was done to build the Globe?  We all understand that the Berlin Wall was a simple of oppression and entrapment.  But few people realize that the Great Wall of China was the same to the people who lived then.  The atrocities connected with the Great Wall of China are astounding!  However, to touch it would be near anathema to most – me included.  Why?

The destruction of Saddam’s Palaces and statues was destruction of heritage because of what it symbolized, yet Auschwitz where millions were exterminated still stands.  To argue that ethically bad symbols need to be destroyed is not reality but is censorship and sanitation of history similar to what the Taliban did when they destroyed the Buddhas in Afghanistan or the Serbians who intentionally targeted more than 400 shells to the National Museum and Library in an attempt to erase evidence of other people’s culture.

While it is not realistic to save everything a decision needs to be made regarding what is “worthy” to be kept for posterity.  Some have questioned whether museums are really “temples where sacrifices are offered up as a way to apologize for the destruction of the past”.  This is certainly salvage language, but is it wrong?

Destruction is unfortunately a very real part of Ancient Egyptian history not only in the ancient past but also in the archaeologically more recent past.

There are two terms usually associated with heritage destruction: iconoclasm and iconoclash.  These were defined in our class in the following way…

Iconoclasm = when one knows what is happening and the motivation for the destruction is clear.

Iconoclash = when one does not know, one hesitates, or one is troubled by an action for which there is no way to know without further enquiry, whether something is destructive or constructive.

Unfortunately, issues in heritage studies are not clear.  We need to keep asking these questions and dialoguing in an effort to make better decisions for when history is destroyed for any reason it is lost forever.