Cyber-archaeology, big data and the race to save threatened cultural heritage sites

In January, it was confirmed that St. Elijah's Monastery, the oldest Christian monastery in Iraq, was completely destroyed by ISIS troops after standing for 1,400 years near the city of Mosul. The race is on to digitally preserve thousands of other at-risk sites around the world before they meet a similar fate – but the work doesn't end there for cyber-archaeologists.

"People have been destroying material culture representations of their enemies for millennia," said Thomas Levy, distinguished professor of anthropology at UC San Diego and director of the Center for Cyber-Archaeology and Sustainability at the Qualcomm Institute.

Archaeological sites today face more serious threats than ever before.

"When intolerant radical ideologies are coupled with modern bombs and bulldozers, the potential for total destruction of heritage sites is unparalleled compared with the past," said Levy.

Cyber-archaeology to the rescue

If cyber-archaeology sounds like Indiana Jones with a laptop instead of a bullwhip, you're on the right track. "Cyber-archaeology is the marriage of archaeology with engineering, computer and natural sciences," Levy said. His research group focuses their efforts on the Middle East, currently the most critical area for threatened archaeological sites. Of the 48 World Heritage sites in danger listed by UNESCO, fully one-third are in the Middle East, a result of the high concentration of remarkable ancient sites in one of the world's cradles of civilization.

Religious extremism is just one of many threats facing cultural heritage sites around the world.

"Cultural heritage sites suffer from looting, erosion, natural disasters and development. We're certainly not immune to this, even here in California," said Levy.

Levy and his team were recently working at Petra, Jordan's famous UNESCO World Heritage site dating from the third century B.C. Indiana Jones went to Petra on horseback in search of the Holy Grail; Levy's team brought helium balloons and high-definition 3-D photography systems.

Petra was mostly destroyed by an earthquake in A.D. 363. Today it's under threat from excessive tourism, looting and graffiti. "The American Center of Oriental Research in Amman, Jordan, asked us to apply our helium balloon high-definition photography system to record Petra's extensive ancient city center in 3-D," explained Levy. "Our georeferenced 3-D model is now freely available to researchers who want to study all aspects of Petra's ancient architecture and topography."

Big data, big challenge

Petra is just one piece in a much larger puzzle. Levy is gearing up to tackle the next big hurdle for cyber-archaeology: once you capture digital information, how do you store, share, collaborate on and display the data to researchers and the public? This is no trivial challenge. Today's archaeologists are equipped with a suite of new and rapidly-evolving digital tools. The data files from these tools – including laser scans, high-definition photos and videos, aerial drone footage, and detailed climate measurements – are numerous and large, and, because of this, they're generally hidden from view.

"What happens to all of these field projects? Where do the data reside? And how do we share big cultural heritage data?" asked Levy. "It's early days for cyber-archaeology. We don't yet have a unified way of dealing with metadata like you find in a field like genetics."

Levy's current project, a collaboration with researchers at UC Berkeley, UC Merced and UCLA, aims to deal directly with the issue of managing big cultural heritage data. This effort recently got a big boost from a Research Catalyst Award of just over $1 million from UC President Janet Napolitano.

"The award allows us to bring together four major archaeology projects, and will help pave the way for the handling of big cultural data in the 21st century," said Levy. "It will be the signature project for the newly created Center for Cyber-Archaeology and Sustainability over the next two years."

The joint project pulls together complex data from satellite imagery, 3-D data capture, drones and other techniques from locations in Egypt, Turkey, Jordan, Israel, Greece and Cyprus covering over 10,000 years of cultural materials, architecture and landscapes.

Because of the vast scope of the data, the researchers will leverage the recently announced Pacific Research Platform (PRP), a high-capacity data "freeway system" that, when complete, will bring together most of the research universities on the U.S. West Coast and Hawaii, National Laboratories and national supercomputer centers, and a few more distant institutions, including the University of Amsterdam.

"The PRP will help us overcome the challenge of sharing big data in real time," said Levy. "This project will be an early test case for moving big data sets on the platform, and will certainly be the first-of-its-kind."

The PRP project is led by Larry Smarr, director of the California Institute for Telecommunications and Information Technology (Calit2), a joint UC San Diego and UC Irvine initiative.

"The significance of Levy's Catalyst project for the PRP is that digitized cultural heritage is becoming a major big data application. Distributed collections need to be interactively available to scholars wherever they are located," said Smarr. Levy envisions that the new platform will enable studies of the correlation of regional climate and demographic data with cultural and technological change on a scale that hasn't been possible before. The data platform will enable much more detailed studies of how human conflicts, climate change, pollution, natural disasters, and looting affect archaeological sites and help forecast future areas of preservation concern.

Virtual archaeology

With sites that are threatened but still intact, like Petra, cyber-archaeology can contribute to ongoing conservation and research goals, and virtually reconstruct ruins to give visitors a glimpse of how they might have looked in the past. When a site is totally destroyed, digital data can play a different role.

After the Taliban destroyed the sixth century Bamiyan Buddhas in 2001, digital information collected by researchers helped study to continue, and in 2015 made it possible for the Buddhas to be temporarily resurrected as a 3-D laser light projection. The digital data could also facilitate future restoration work.

Levy is bullish on the potential of 3-D visualizations both for research and public display. "Digital technologies, such as laser scanning and structure-from-motion high-definition photography have the ability to create remarkably accurate 3-D representations of cultural heritage sites. It's the next best thing to the real thing," said Levy. "Google Cardboard and Oculus Rift and other emerging 3-D technologies make it possible to enter and explore ancient monuments as they were the day they were scanned."

Taking advantage of the Pacific Research Platform and the cutting-edge virtual reality technology being developed at UC San Diego, Levy's group will install walk-in 3-D kiosks at the UC libraries for viewing digital objects and sharing heritage data in real time – a virtual reality experience almost like a simplified holodeck from Star Trek.

"The speed of the PRP makes high-quality virtual reality visualizations of big cultural data possible, even across great distances," said Tom DeFanti, research scientist at Calit2's Qualcomm Institute, where the PRP is being spearheaded. "Researchers will be able to access archived data and works-in-progress as fluidly as if all the information were stored right in their own labs."

"The PRP is jointly operated by Calit2 and UC Berkeley's CITRIS, ensuring that both southern and northern California campuses are well served," DeFanti added.

Using 3-D video cameras and 3-D computer models, patrons of the kiosks will be able to travel to cultural heritage sites and explore them as if they were there. The 3-D kiosks are planned for UC San Diego's Geisel Library, UC Merced's Kolligian Library, the Phoebe Hearst Museum at UC Berkeley, and the Fowler Museum at UCLA. True to the spirit of the Catalyst Award, Levy's aim is to catalyze further cyber-archaeology work and help bring field archaeologists toward a unified digital platform.

"Our group happens to all be interested in the Middle East," said Levy, "But the tools and the network we're developing are geared to create a model for the world."
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Reference:

Murdock, Andy. 2016. “Cyber-archaeology, big data and the race to save threatened cultural heritage sites”. Phys.org. Posted: February 17, 2016. Available online: http://phys.org/news/2016-02-cyber-archaeology-big-threatened-cultural-heritage.html

Heritage destruction in conflict zones provides archaeological opportunities

Researchers say it is possible to obtain a great deal of original and important information from sites that have suffered badly through conflict

• Archaeologists from American University of Beirut and University of Leicester describe value of researching conflict-ravaged sites
• They are investigating Graeco-Roman temple in Lebanon
• They say sites previously considered too badly damaged by conflict warrant systematic archaeological investigation

An international archaeological team is investigating an historic site devastated by conflict in Lebanon.

They have demonstrated it is possible to obtain original and important information from heritage sites that have been devastated by conflict.

Working at the Graeco-Roman temple and village site of Hosn Niha, high in the central Biqa' Valley of Lebanon, the team led by Dr Paul Newson (Department of History and Archaeology, American University of Beirut) and Dr Ruth Young (School of Archaeology and Ancient History, University of Leicester) have described the value of exploring conflict damaged sites in the leading archaeological journal Antiquity: http://antiquity.ac.uk/

Dr Newson said: "Shocking recent footage showing apparent damage to world heritage and archaeological sites at Hatra and Nimrud in Iraq include scenes of the bulldozing of irreplaceable buildings. Aerial photographs of living ancient cities such as Homs and Aleppo in Syria taken before the war have been compared to images from the last few months, and the extent of damage to houses, mosques, and heritage structures is brutal and widespread.

"Of course the human cost in any conflict is the first and highest priority; however, archaeology and heritage are extremely vulnerable to attack and damage during conflict and conflict continues to inflict damage on numerous sites, both large and small, around the world today."

Dr Young added: "Rather than simply ignoring sites that have been badly damaged by conflict, we have taken on the challenge of investigating a site previously considered too badly damaged by conflict to warrant systematic archaeological investigation.

"Our research at the Graeco-Roman temple and village site of Hosn Niha in Lebanon has shown that with the right methods and questions, it is possible to obtain a great deal of original and important information from sites that have suffered badly through conflict.

"Using a range of up-to-date surface survey methods we were able to answer some important questions about the site. The first of these was an accurate assessment of site damage, what had been done and where, and the effects of various actions, be it bulldozing or clandestine looting of the site. Through this exercise, we learned that bulldozing and other damage actions had effectively erased the heart of the settlement, but significantly sized sections of settlement beyond remained quite well preserved. From recording and collecting surface finds from across the settlement area as a whole we were able to begin to understand both the morphology and development history of the settlement."

The authors suggest the settlement was firmly established by the 1st century CE with a dense core area and more dispersed courtyard dwellings on the periphery. By the early Islamic period the settlement appears less robust and permanent occupation may have ended for a time. Surprisingly, they also recovered some evidence for an early medieval re-occupation of the site, perhaps a fortified farmhouse. They acknowledge the initial results are preliminary and that more research and analysis of the results is on-going.

Hosn Niha, along with many other sites in Lebanon was severely damaged as a consequence of decades of civil war and the associated unruliness and accelerated looting that went with this.

The authors state: "Sites that have been badly damaged by various causes may be disregarded by professionals who consider that their archaeological or heritage potential has been too badly affected to warrant any investigation. Instead, as demonstrated by the Hosn Niha project, the opposite should become automatic: archaeologists should view conflict-damaged sites as opportunities to gain information and explore sites and regions with new agendas.

"Conflict is impacting the lives of many millions of people, and the archaeology and heritage of many nations. All conflict-damaged archaeology and heritage can play a vital role as resources to help re-build damaged communities and offer hope of employment and reintegration to those impacted by war. Being able to offer ways of thinking of how to deal with damaged sites, gain as much information from them, and consider them a valuable resource rather than an inevitable casualty of war is critical to moving forward, and regaining control over land and identity."
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Reference:

EurekAlert. 2015. “Heritage destruction in conflict zones provides archaeological opportunities”. EurekAlert. . Posted: May 1,2015Available online: http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2015-05/uol-hdi_1050115.php

Libya's 'extraordinary' archaeology under threat

As the Gadaffi regime continues to massacre citizens, its repression also puts a rich cultural heritage at risk.

Eleven Italian researchers who were evacuated from Libya in a C-130 Hercules military aircraft on Saturday are thought to have been among the last foreign archaeologists in the country. With Libya's people being attacked by forces loyal to the regime of leader Muammar al-Gaddafi, the scientists were thankful to escape to an air-force base south of Rome.

The team of seven men and four women were from the Italian–Libyan Archaeological Mission in the Acacus and Messak, an expedition to research prehistoric archaeology and rock-art. They took temporary refuge in an oilfield camp in the open desert. Stress levels were high, explains Savino di Lernia, head of the team: "We were hundreds of kilometres from an airport, with the entire country to be crossed to reach it," he says. In a Twin Otter light aircraft, they had to make their way at short notice to Sebha airport in central Libya to rendezvous with the evacuation plane.

The situation has been tense since al-Gaddafi's forces launched a brutal repression of a popular uprising, leaving thousands of civilians dead and causing more than 100,000 people to flee the country, provoking a humanitarian crisis along its borders. The regime's crackdown and the resulting conflict — as well as subsequent chaos and risk of looting — also threatens ancient archaeological sites, as have recent uprisings in nearby countries.

Libya has an extraordinary archaeological heritage, says Paul Bennett, head of mission at the Society for Libyan Studies in London, who has spent much of the past 30 years working in Libya. He explains that the country has been a "melting pot" of cultures throughout history, and has sites of Punic and Roman remains to the west, Greek and Egyptian to the east and Berber to the south. There are also important prehistoric sites, including some of the world's earliest rock and cave art, and underwater archaeological sites along the Mediterranean coast.

The Gaddafi regime has been blocking the Internet and telephone systems in the country since the uprising, which has made it very difficult to get information on the current status of archaeological sites, say researchers. However, di Lernia managed to speak with Salah Agab, chairman of the Libyan Department of Antiquities, and other department staff on 28 February, and says their understanding is that the situation is currently under control and that all museums and sites are safe. Nature was unable to reach Agab directly.

Libya is home to five World Heritage sites, designated by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO): the ancient Greek archaeological sites of Cyrene; the Roman ruins of Leptis Magna; the Phoenician port of Sabratha; the rock-art sites of the Acacus Mountains in the Sahara Desert; and the old town of Ghadamès, an oasis city that has been home to Romans, Berbers and the Byzantine civilization. Security is good in these areas, says di Lernia, but may be "problematic" elsewhere.

The capital city, Tripoli, remains tightly controlled by Gaddafi's heavily-armed forces, who this week launched counterattacks against nearby cities controlled by protestors. Despite the security presence, important sites in this northwestern region, such as Sabratha, are "really endangered", says di Lernia.

Tripoli itself is home to two major museums, both reportedly safe at present. The national Jamahiriya Museum holds important prehistoric collections, including the oldest known African mummy, from Uan Muhuggiag in the Libyan Sahara. The museum is also housed in the ancient Red Castle of Asaraya al-Hamra, itself a heritage site. The Museum of Libya, meanwhile, contains noteworthy Greek and Roman collections.

Work at a standstill

After Libya gained its independence from Italy in 1951, its rulers neglected archaeological research and sites, largely because they associated the field with the colonial period. Over the past decade, however, archaeology has bloomed in Libya, says Bennett, with more international missions allowed into the country.

That has partly been a result of Libya's transition from an international pariah, linked with terrorism, to a political and commercial ally of the West. But the resurgence also owes much to the country's growing awareness of the importance of its cultural heritage — and the tourism potential that it brings, says Bennett. That same opening-up also has a downside, however: for example, recent rampant development of the oil industry, construction, and agriculture also threatens the country's cultural heritage and archaelogical sites*.

The conflict has brought joint international–Libyan archaeological work to a standstill, and uncertainty surrounds future missions. There are thought to have been around 20 international missions in Libya, each comprising around a dozen or so archaeologists. All are now thought to be safely outside the country, having taken commercial transport home, been evacuated or taken refuge in nearby countries.

Researchers have little idea of when they will be able to return. Vincent Michel, an archaeologist at the University of Poitiers in France who has a decade's experience of working in Libya, is part of a French archaeological mission that was scheduled to leave next month for the ancient Greek Apollonia site on the Mediterranean coast. That venture has now been suspended. Di Lernia's mission — itself a legacy of the colonial period — began in 1955 and is the longest-running international mission in Libya, but now he no longer knows "if and when the mission will be able to work in the area".

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References:

*Bennett, P. and Barker, G., Afr. Arch. Rev, 2011. doi: 10.1007/s10437-010-9085-x

Butler, Declan. 2011. "Libya's 'extraordinary' archaeology under threat". Nature. Posted: March 2, 2011. Available online: http://www.nature.com/news/2011/110302/full/news.2011.132.html