GIS for Archaeology and CRM

As many of you many have read, in the past few days, Google has unleaded a number of improvements to their suite of tools. Google Earth is now redesigned in Beta 4 with the ability to display textures, Google Geo-Coding, Picasa has web albums, and KML upgraded to version 2.1. For in depth reviews of these changes, check out some of the links at the end of this post.

The purpose of this post is just to give a quick how-to on quickly displaying archaeological data and pictures by geotagging images in the new Picasa, creating a .kmz, and making it available to your colleagues or clients (new Google Earth EULA clearly state no commercial use). The process is quick simple, thanks to Google, and very quick.

Download the example .kmz here

To start with, I have a few photos of a dig site in South Eastern, Pennsylvania. I also have sketch-up models of the archaeological structural remains, and a model for the interpretation of the once standing structure. ( I have posted a little about making these models, but plan on a tutorial one day).

After downloading or upgrading to the new Picasa, your HD is scanned for photos, and you are ready to go. Find the photos you are interested in, select them, go to [Tools] -> [Geotag] -> [Geotage with Google Earth]. GE will open up and a large cross hair will be in the center of the screen. Navigate and zoom yourself to where your photo was taken (I had to click back to Picasa to see the little window which tells you the particular photo you are Geotagging).

Once located, click page to Picasa and “Geotag”. After a second, it will indicate that you are ready to geotag the next photo. Do this for all of your selected photos and click done. At this point, it will tell you that is is creating a .kmz of your photos. I was not sure where it saved this .kmz, so being lazy, I just right-clicked on the “temporary place” table of contents in GE and saved it as a .kmz in the folder I wanted it to. Now you have a .kmz file which uses your photos as the point icons, which are clickable for large images.
At this point, I brought in a model which represents the archaeological wall remains, extruded to show what is probably still underground. Combined with the photos, you can now see an archaeological interpretation complete with the photos of what it looked like in the filed. Better yet, it is georefferenced within its context. Zoom in, pan, tilt, to your heart is content. On top of this, I also included a model rendition of what the structure probably looked like. This model is based on archaeology, etchings, and maps. (by default it is turned off in the GE table of contents, go ahead and turn it on if you like).

This is a pretty quick example and even though it took me a few hours to make the Sketchup models, the Picasa Geotag part and .kmz creation took only minutes. I have not yet bothered to recreate the Sketchup models with textures, as GE Beta 4 now displays textures. Also, this process could have been faster, but running Flock Beta, GE 4 Beta, Picasa Beta, and Google Sketchup Beta all at the same time is quite a rough experience. A similar How-To for Picasa and GE can be found at ogleearth.com
I’m big into wanting people to see what I see as an archaeologist. It is a very secretive and data guarding profession. I want others to see a buried wall, and a 100 year old etching to make the same connections that I do. These new technologies make it easier by the day to share archaeological info and knowledge.

Check out these other blogs for current info on Googles redesigned products (Google 2.0? Has O’Reilly copyright that?):

OgleEarth

Google Earth Blog

Google Press Release

Google Maps Mania

I ran across a relatively new blog (GIS in Science) today that is established to be the discussion forum for a new project that evaluates the value of Geographic Information Systems within Science. Run by members of the Spatial Information Laboratory (SPIN Lab) at the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, GIS in Science also has a large body of contributors from a variety of disciplines and locations.

What drew me to this site was a post and paper discussing the the integration of GIS within the discipline of Archaeology. Before I talk about the paper, I would be helpful to briefly outline the context which this group has developed to evaluate how well GIS is integrated into various scientific disciplines.

Modelling the integration of GIS in a scientific discipline

In a short paper entitled, Modelling the integration of GIS in a scientific discipline, the author discusses an outline of an explanatory model that evaluates the value of GIS within a discipline. The model that the author is searching for is intended to go beyond the typical quantification of publications and citations to a more in depth search which is also qualitative. Basically, the model which is proposed offers six stages before GIS is fully integrated. Briefly, the stages are defined by:

Stage 1, pioneering publications and presentations
Stage 2, invitational presentations
Stage 3, sessions and symposia dedicated to topic
Stage 4, academics seeking training
Stage 5, academics providing training
Stage 6, construction of large scale data base for research and analysis

and full integration. At the point of full integration, GIS is woven into a substantial part of the academic research work flow and education. This model represents the initial ideas of the project group and are certain to be updated and refined as the model progresses.

Integration of GIS in Archaeology

As one of the initial disciplines surveyed by the GIS in Science project group, Archaeology is discussed as being more broadly integrated with GIS than other historical sciences. As early as the 1970’s archaeology had started to turn some attention to the need of studying space as a prime attribute of culture. As noted by Hans Kamermans of the University of Leyden,

“Archaeology is the determination of human behavior, from the location of cultural objects.”

As the 1980’s progressed, computers were heavily used in archaeology and early GIS methods were adopted. Conferences in the late 1980’s and early 1990’s involved more topics of spatial analysis and GIS. As well, publications on GIS in archaeology grew in numbers. By the late 1990’s conferences had specific sessions dedicated to GIS and GIS was a topic available for study in a large number of universities. This area of study is more available today. The author of this paper conclude that to this point, stages 1 through 5 of the model if GIS integration are fulfilled, but Stage 6, large scale databases, are still outstanding.

Although attempts at large scale archaeological databases have been made since the early days of computers in archaeology, no one database has been constructed to satisfy the needs of various researchers, both academic and professional, that covers a broad region of space and time. Specific databases have been created for specific purposes, which work very well, but large scale applicability is still unrealized.

The problems with the advancement of GIS in Archaeology are the lack of a large scale database and time:money. While the issue of the database is that of multiple recording methods, multiple data uses, and endless varieties of research questions, the issue of money is pretty obvious. By universities and private companies dealing in archaeology have little budget leeway for implementing new and novel uses of technology, such as GIS. Though, as stated by the project team, this is not the end of the road.

Archaeology has great value in the use of GIS for the integration of multiple data sets and measurements, spatial analysis, and predictive modeling. These areas are where the use of GIS in archaeology is vibrant and where advances have been made. The author continues by conjecturing the future fields in which archaeologists can take advantage and advance GIS. It is the areas of temporal GIS and 3D/4D applications that the author feels Archaeology will turn to. Noting that time is just as an important consideration as place, archaeologists will embrace this dimension of GIS. As well, visualization in 3D will become a common GIS application in the future of archaeology.

What does a GIS Archaeologist think about this?

The project is very ambitious and I think very worth while. I am very interested to see how other disciplines use GIS and how well integrated they are comparatively.

As far as the discussion of GIS in Archaeology, I believe they have a nice synthesis, but perhaps thier view is a little narrow. First off, the article makes more than a few references to the distinction between academics and “the large group of non-academic, professional archaeologists that use the data for so-called ‘Cultural Resource Management’” Pardon? Was I just called a non-academic that does ’so-called’ management? I have passed through the ivory tower, but I didn’t find the chairs very comfortable. Perhaps the rift between scholars and professional is greater in parts of Europe, but the degrees above my desk and the resources that my employer has effectively managed comfort me in knowing that their academic slant is misguided. Moving on. Secondly, I am an archaeology who does GIS 99% of the time. For me, it is totally integrated into the discipline. I think the authors need to explicitly define what they mean by archaeology and where they seek to find integration. GIS is, of course, methods, applications, techniques, and/or a paradigm. Integration can be through broad application or specialization. I would be interested to know how the project team defines these terms.
The creation of large scale archaeological data bases is well underway. As seen by a number of papers at the Computer Applications in Archaeology conference, there is great research in this area. I am sure the project team is aware of this research, one of the papers authors, Hans Kamermans, is the Secretary of the CAA steering comity. Here are some links (OCHRE, Open Context) to very cool projects which take archaeological data recorded in very different lexicons and standardizes them based on various means. This is a very active field of research and definitely one to watch.

As far as the issue of time and money, us ‘non-academics’ have found a variety of ways to sneak technology into our bare bones projects. I have to give credit to many university researchers who have pioneered new methods and continually developed them to a point where professional can employee them with some certainty. Although, just as much credit should be given to quick thinking archaeologists who adopt proven and effective technology from other fields. In today’s climate of free Internet service, APIs, open source, and the whole lot of democratized technologies, the money barrier will be continuously overcome with the confidence in imaginative individuals.

As far as the future of GIS and archaeology, it’s any ones guess. I think 3D visualization is already a big application for GIS in our field. Chances are it will grow, but you only have to look to the problems that many disciplines have had with 3D vis over the past decade. 3D has been the future since the future has been made the past. On the other hand, advancements in 3D geometry capturing and the constant advancement of Google and its competitors definitely give a breath of fresh air to this department.

I will certainly check back to GIS in Science. I am very curious to see where archaeology falls on the spectrum of disciplines.

If the stat that 20% of the world has access to the Internet is correct, then you can now share your GIS data with ~1.1 Billion people very quickly.

Yesterday, Google announced a number of amazing changes ranging from a new redesigned beta version of Google Earth to an updated version of the KML (2.1) language. So as not to repeat what many have already said, check out the recent posts at Ogleearth blog for great coverage. My intention here is to talk about just one aspect of the new changes, the ability to display KML files in Google Maps.

KML (Keyhole Markup Language) is an XML language that is used to encode geographic information (points, lines, polygons, images, models) for use with Google Earth. With the new changes in KML 2.1, this same information can be viewed in Google Maps. The interface between Google Maps and KML 2.1 could not be more simple! In the search bar of the maps.google.com window, simply type in the URL of the KML file you want to display and voila!

So you don’t have any KML files, but you want to publish your data in Google Maps. If you have ArcGIS, GIS data, and some sort of web space (I use Bluehost.com), it is fast and simple. By using one of two products, the KML Home Companion or Export to KML, both VB scripts for ArcGIS 8.X - 9.x, GIS data can be written to KML files in seconds. Later, I will discuss the limitations of this process.

Here is a quick example. First, I downloaded publicly available data from the Delaware State Historic Preservation office. The data set consisted of a point file for the National Register of Historic Places Listed Structures for all of Delaware and a Polygon file of National Register Listed Historic Districts. These data are in Delaware State Plane coordinate system, but both KML export routines will reproject on the fly as long as the data is attributed correctly. I took a subset of these files; Google Maps can only handle so much data, but I have not found what the threshold is yet.

By using the simple export tools (each does things slightly differently, you’ll see which works best for you) the KMLs are written and simply FTPed to my web server. The process honestly takes less than 30 seconds. From here, go to maps.google.com and cut/paste the URL of the file on your server and there you have it. Here is my quick example: http://www.gisarch.com/kml/NR_pnts1.kml and http://www.gisarch.com/kml/NR_dist2.kml (cut and paste links into search bar of Google Maps page, or use these links if you like skipping steps: points, polys). From here, you can also click the “link to this page” text and grab the URL that points directly to your new Google Maps (”Link to this page” example). Taking it a step further, take your new URL and stick it in www.tinyurl.com to shrink it and come back with http://www.tinyurl.com/fm8vl as your new Google Map URL. When exchanging data with those in the know, all you need to do is tell them to go to “fm8vl“. How cool is that? Maybe a small stretch, but hey, why not? (note: the Tinyurl trick worked most of the time, but failed here and there)
What if you want to see both data set? Hack the KML! Use a text editor (I like HTML-Kit) to cut and paste the geometry from one into the other and you can now see the NR points and Polygons in the same map (example: http://tinyurl.com/j2t2d). I had to trim the points to make the map load, but you get the point.

As you have seen, some of the features do not have the name attribute correct and the points symbols differ. This is due to the differences between KML home companion and Export to KML. Export to KML plainly lets you set the field to have as the name for each feature, but for KML Home Companion, it is not as apparent. I will have to look a little further to find what I am missing. Also, Export to KML would changed some of the more complex and small polygons to points during the export, whereas KML home companion exported every poly with no complaints. The output text is not the same for each script, but they can be hacked together.

I know this is a pretty low tech and minor example of how this new feature can be used, but as far as I am concerned, it is an amazing step in opening the door to allowing more people to share geographic data. With a process as simple as this, open data, export, FTP, and view, we should see a whole new lot of Google Map creations coming through the door.

The experimentation continues!!!

The Antkythera Mechanism Research Project: Applying modern computer technology to our oldest artifact of archaeological computer technology.

The Antikythera Mechanism Research Project (AMRP) is a joint venture by Cardiff University, the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, the National Archaeological Museum of Athens, X-Tek Systems UK and Hewlett-Packard USA, funded by the Leverhulme Trust and the Cultural Foundation of the National Bank of Greece.

The intention of AMRP is to use state of the art technologies to better understand the origins and function of the Antikythera Mechanism (A short background on this mechanism is written below). Thought to be a first century B.C. analog computing device for calculating the position of the sun, moon, and possibly classically known planets, the Antikythera Mechanism represents computing technology not thought o have existed until 1500 years later. Composed of Bronze and an array of 30+ gears, in a differential configuration, the mechanism, has been studied and x-Rayed in the past, but little understanding has come of it. (Wikipedia entry on Antikythera Mechanism)
Now, the AMRP, teamed up with major players in modern technology, hopes to unravel the mysteries of the Antikythera Mechanism. Using Computed x-Ray Tomography, the team developed 3D images of the mechanism and shed new light on the ~2000 Greek characters that are inscribed on the device. New releases show that the team is making great strides in understanding the inter workings of the ancient computer. As of June 6, 2006, the AMRP announced that using new techniques, they have now deciphered 95% of the Greek text etched in the Antikythera Mechanism. This transcripts have not yet been released, except for a small reveal on the website that mentions the “little Golden Sphere”.

In the coming months, the AMRP will release more information on their findings and reveal the ancient text which may very well rewrite the history of technology and computers as we now know it.

Background info on the Antikythera Mechanism

In 1901, near the Greek island of Antikythera, a sponge diver discovered an ancient shop wreck in 42 meters of water. Within this wreck were a number of statues, vessels, and other artifacts including a deeply encrusted clump of stone and metal. It was not for another year that archaeologist Spyridon Stais discovered that this encrusted lump displayed a distinct impression of a gear. As it turned out, this encrusted lump was a bronze mechanism which housed some 30+ gears and was constructed around 80 B.C.

From this point, archaeologists cleaned and then debated the origins and propose of the “Antikythera Mechansim” for years. It was not until 1959 that this artifact had received a full scientific evaluation. Derek Price published articles (1959 Scientific American article) discussing the function of the Antikythera Mechanism as a computing device for calculating the position of heavenly bodies such as the Sun and Moon. To this point, devices such as this, with differential gearing systems, were thought to not have been invented until 1500 years to the present. If Price was correct, this was by far the earliest computing device known to exist. Price’s articles set off a series of discussions, but the Antikythera Mechanism’s place in history was not yet secured.

In 1993, a new reconstruction was proposed by Bernard Gardner, a student of Allan George Bromley who X-Rayed the device some years earlier. Finally, in 2002, Micheal Wright used Linear Tomogrpahy to develop a new model which suggests that the Antikythera Mechanism could also calculate the location of classically known planets.

Antikythera Mechanism Animations

To get a better idea of how this whole thing works, I highly recommend checking out Manos Roumeliotis’s animation videos. Manos has modeled and reanimated the mechanism from scratch to show the mechanics behind the mystery.

As posted in the CCA Cartography blog, MapTech is now hosting a collection of late 19th century to early 20th century USGS quad maps for much of the Eastern United States. States covered by this project include everything from West Virginia to Maine. Each state is searchable by quad name, town name, or a graphical quad index. The quads (generally 15 minute or 1:63,360) are available as high resolution scans divided into NE,NW,SE,SW sections. Each section can be viewed online or downloaded (~0.5 to ~2.0 megs), although world files are not included.

The story behind this invaluable collection is is just as exciting as the collection itself. Begun by a railroad enthusiast, Christopher Marshall, mapping abandoned right-of-ways in New Hampshire, this collection has grown from a library to library search in his home area to a state by state collaboration. With a big help from Meredith Ricker of the University of New Hampshire Dimond Library Government Documents Department and other volunteer map enthusiasts, the collection has grew state by state into the massive project that it is now.

In order to make this collection publicly accessible to other map nuts and researchers, Christopher approached MapTech through a common acquaintance and asked if they would host it. MapTech accepted and published them free of charge.

In my line of work, maps like this are extremely valuable. Time series studies of housing location, density, and land use as well as locations of long forgotten features such as houses, mines, and hydrologic features are all based of historic USGS quads. The creation of historic sensitivity analysis is done with maps such as this in conjunction with aerial photos. Also, prehistoric studies can benefit from these maps for their indication of what hydrologic systems and landforms may have looked like before urban sprawl and mass development.

Dave at GisPilot.com emailed me a link to a cool use of the MapBender WMS to display the location of Pre-Columbian Mayan archaeological sites across Mesoamerica (wikipedia link for Mayan civilization). In order to load the numerous Mayan sites, a click of the zoom-in tool is needed. I was quite surprised by the number of sites documented in this project.

The Mapbender suite used in the creation of the Mayan archaeology site is a free, OGC compliant, Open Source Geospatial Foundation project that implements the management of spatial data services using PHP, Javascript, and XML. Though, even users with limited knowledge of these languages can produce mapping services relatively quickly. As expressed by the Mayan map creator:

“…mapping archaeological sites of the pre-Columbian Maya culture in Middle America was the work of only a few days by a not very experienced user. It demonstrates the benefits of such GIS applications to the public services and helps present day archaeologist to analyze their data under new points of view and new questions…” (German translation probably source of sentence errors)

Also discussed by the WMS applications author and elsewhere, the public mapping of archaeology sites is usually restricted to sites that have above ground components, such as pyramids, temples, or earthworks. In the field of archaeology there is a culture, both institutionalized and mandated by law, that archaeology site locations are to be kept secret. It is a general fear of looting, pot hunting, medal detectorists, and vandalism that keep this notion alive. In situations such as the Mayan site WMS, accuracy and findability of sites can be controlled by available base map resolution and introduced error. Although, with some Mayan sites, it’s not to hard to find the 200ft tall temple.

The introduction of error and low resolution may hamper some research agendas, but have an idea that combining an accurate environmental database with a slightly inaccurate map may be a way around this. Much of the site specific data that researchers would be interested in consists of elevation, slope, soil type, bedrock geology, as well as the types and dates of artifacts. The data served by the WMS application can have very accurate site specific environmental data, derived from the sites true location, while the map of the site is squwed to a certain extent. I know this spatial encryption is far from fool proof, but it might give enough uncertinaty to site location to both satisfy the state laws on displaying site location and dissuade a would be vandal.

Okay, now that we have figured it out, let the Archaeo-Mashups roll!!!

Background on Mayan Civilization

The Pre-Columbian Mayan civilization flourished in Mesoamerica (central Mexico south to Costa Rica) from ~1000 BC to just before the the arrival of the Spanish in 1519. Across this span of time, the pre-Columbian Mayan civilization grew from little known roots, flourished into an incredible complex society, and declined in prominence with wide spread warfare. The Mayan are known for monumental architecture, high style art work, writing, and math to name a few. After the colonization of their homeland by the Spanish in the 16th century, the remaining Mayan people integrated into society and continued with their customs. Today, there are still many Mayan people in the area that the pre-Columbian civilization once occupied.

This morning, Adena Schutzberg, Executive Editor of Directions Magazine, published a great article on the basics of GeoRSS. Entitled, “Fun with GeoRSS“, this article is fundamental enough to help anyone with a basic knowledge of RSS to understand GeoRSS, but in depth to the point of demonstrating applications and offering future directions.
If you have not run across the term GeoRSS, the concept is quite simple. Take the basic structure of an RSS feed and add simple yet descriptive coordinate data to create geographic objects (points, line, polygons).

Whether this term is new to you are part of your old bag of tricks, this is well written article that deserves a look.

For those interested, I am including a few extra links here to GeoRSS information:

GeoRSS.org

A great article from Mikel Maron on the who and what of GeoRSS

GeoRSS: Adding Location Awareness to News Feeds at aecnews.com
ACME GeoRSS Map Viewer

Mapufacture GeoRSS Feed Aggregator

GeoFeed Explorer: a Mashup of GeoRSS Audio feeds in Europe

MGeoRSS: Google Maps API Extension for GeoRSS

GeoName RSS to GeoRSS Converter

YAHOO! Map API GeoRSS Refernence

A GeoRSS Discussion List

Mixing GeoRSS and RDF by Harry Chen

And here are a few links to give you a window into the recent discussion concerning the future of multiple GeoRSS standards:

OCG to assume GeoRSS?: Hobu, Inc.

OGC and the Little Guy: Digital Earth Weblog 

Since the discovery of the first Neanderthal (wikipedia) remains in Düsseldorf, Germany, 1856, Homo neanderthalensis has been one of the most studied human species. From findings across Europe and Western Asia, dating from ~230,000 to ~29,000 years ago, a sizable and diverse collections of Neaderthal remains and artifacts have been collected.

It is the goal of The Neanderthal Tools (TNT), in collaboration with The Neanderthal Studies Professional Online Service (NESPOS), to complete “Europe’s singular cultural heritage” for Neandethal remains, fossils, and ecofacts in a web based repository. This repository will offers tools for the examination and exploration of a complete archaeological workflow from site topography down to the 3D models and documentation of individual fossil finds.

“The TNT applications take advantage of state-of-the-art technology to provide a virtual public collection of fossils and artefacts which is open to the scientific community. The Neanderthal Tools enable scientifically valid research on virtual primary sources for the first time.”

The three tools used by the TNT to achieve this goal are the wiki based collaborative platform of NESPOS, the Visual Simulation and Collaborative Rendering Engine (VISICORE) Suite of GIS, annotation, and visualization software, and the National Geographic ArchChannel (NatAC), a public oriented web portal sponsored by National Geographic.

VISICORE: 3D GIS Tools for Archaeology

The VISICORE suite looks like an amazing set of tools. Within the suite there is The Artefact Exploration and Collaboration Rendering Engine (ArteCore) and The Geofact Mapping and Rendering Engine (GeoCore).

ArteCore is an artifact visualization and analysis program that allows users to explore Neaderthal fossils and finds. As part of the project, the TNT team and collaborators have CT scanned, created 3D models (in stl format), and 6 sided images which can all be accessed with ArteCore. Using the tools of ArteCore, these finds can be measured and analysis (using volume, angles, distance, area, etc…) as if they were the original specimens. ArteCore also has the capabilities to bring in multiple models in stl or X3D format, as well as, do CT to STL polyginization.

Further the GeoCORE Suite extends the visualization and analysis to the site level. Built off 3D Geo’s LandXPlorer, GeoCore allows for the visualization and integration of 3D GeoData in a number of popular formats. GeoCore also allows for the implementation of video, audio, and 2D media. Thematic mapping, virtual rendering, TINs, Bockstein Cross Sections, and map overlays are some of the functions supported by GeoCore.

The VISICORE suite, in total, is a multi-scalar analysis and visualization package that fits the mold of a archaeology/paleoarchaeology specific 3D GIS package. These tools are created by the TNT team and only avaliable through the NESPOS service.

NESPOS is the portal from which the vast amount of Neanderthal related data and imagery is served. In order to access this store house, you must be a member of the society. A Student membership is 30 Euro ($38.37) and a Single membership is 100 euro ($127.90). A membership includes a years access to the repository, scientific paper, VISICORE suite, and CT scans and STL 3D models of fossil finds. (I am not a member, nor affiliated with NESPOS. This is only for your information)

As an archaeologist, I have only a passive fascination with Neanderthal paleoarchaeology, but I am definitely tempted to join NESPOS just to play with the VISICORE suite of 3D GIS tool. Having scouted around a bit, I get the sense that the NESPOS is considering a limited form of public access to the Neaderthal database. As far as I am aware of, this project is the most advanced media and software enabled colobrative site going. As described by the site, a membership in NESPOS includes your own non-public data store. I assume this enables the user to store queries, notes, and favorte models and sites. Perhaps tagging is also invloved in this data store. As a comparitive project, although not Neaderthal specific, check out my post on the collabrotive archaeology data project at Open Context.

*Images are property of TNT and NESPOS

In the current issue of ArcNews, ESRI is showcasing four articles on the use of GIS in archaeoloicial site managment. I have not yet had a chance to read these areticles, but plan to very shortly. Once read, I’ll through in my 2 cents with some comments. Until then, check them out for yourself.

GIS for Archaeological Database and Managment

U.S. Bureau of Reclamation Administers Archaeological Sites with GIS

Modeling Archaeological Sensitivity in Vermont with GIS

Protecting Archaeological Resources During an Oil Spill in Washington State: Using GIS to Ensure Effective Communication and Protection

Prehistoric Sites on the Island of St. Kitts Studied Using GIS: Studying the Past to Understand Today’s Environment

Also, don’t miss the exclusive online article on Historic Preservation:

In New York State, the Olana Historic Site Viewshed Analysis Uses GIS: Preserving the Real-Life Landscapes of Frederick Church

The Theban Mapping Project, as seen last night on the Discovery Channel, is an amazing project dedicated to preservation, education, and the creation of a comprehensive archaeological database for the Valley of the Kings, Thebes (Luxor), Egypt. (Google Map).

The Valley of the Kings (Wikipedia), utilized primarily between 1539 BC - 1075 BC, is the resting place for the kings and Pharaohs of Egypt’s New Kingdom. Located on the West back of the Nile River, across from modern Luxor, this valley is the home of some of Egypt’s most famous figures, Tutankhamun (KV62), Amenhotep (KV39), and more recently The Sons of Ramessess (KV5), the Valley of the Kings has been attracting archaeologists, tourists, and grave robbers throughout antiquity. Due to this attention, much of the valley’s limited and invaluable resources have been plundered and destroyed.

In 1978, the Theban Mapping Project (TMP), began an ambitious program to document every aspect of the valley for future generations.

“The TMP believes that the first and most essential step in preserving this heritage is a detailed map and database of every archaeological, geological, and ethnographic feature in Thebes. Only when these are available can sensible plans be made for tourism, conservation, and further study.”

As seen by the “Atlas of the Valley of the Kings” on the TMP website and the Discovery Channel program last night, this project is producing astounding results. Viewing the TMP site, clicking on the “Atlas of the Valley of the Kings” opens a new window that explores the vast amount of spatial and archaeological information collected over the past 20 years. Once greeted with an overview map of the valley and its tombs, clicking on their plan will generate a short video or text description of its history. The atlas is searchable by KV number, if you have a favorite tomb, as well as a key word search. Another tab includes detailed information on each tomb including photos and video. While a final link is an interactive ortho plan of the valley’s tombs with has tools for zooming and measuring. Finally, clicking on the “3D Tomb” link on the bottom left of the atlas frame will launch a 3D experience which takes a narrated walk through of KV14 accompanied with photos of wall each chambers wall engravings and paintings. Similarly, the Atlas of the Theban Necropolis offers juicy visual media underlain by incredibly well documented archaeological data.

The TMP website and “Atlas” projects are an amazing product of archaeological information and visualization. Rarely do projects achieve such an in depth melding of data and visual context with deep rooted narration than anyone would find fascinating. If you have a few extra moments (and broadband to let the Atlas load), I highly recommend checking out the Theban Mapping Project website!

*panarama photo credit to Gilles Renault