Catalog essays: Metereological Balloon with Camera Attached, Megiddo; & "Air-Mosaic" of the Mound at Megiddo. more

oi.uchicago.edu picturing the past 30 30. meteorological Balloon witH camera attacHed, megiddo olaf e. Lind, november 5, 1929 print from glass negative 18.25 x 22.50 cm oriental institute photograph p. 18637 This photograph shows a spherical meteorological balloon adapted for aerial photography by the Oriental Institute’s expedition to Megiddo in Palestine (now in modern Israel). The use of a balloon for aerial photography at Megiddo was 154 devised by Philip L. O. Guy, then field director of the Megiddo Expedition, and his assistant Robert S. Lamon, as a less costly and more efficient alternative to using an airplane for aerial photography (Guy 1932; Breasted 1933, p. 249). oi.uchicago.edu cataLog no. 30 The three individuals in the photograph are Robert S. Lamon (center), William E. Staples (right), and a third, unidentified figure (left). Behind them is the shed used to store the balloon when not in flight. Lamon and the third figure hold reels carrying strong cord used to control the ascent and position of the balloon and its suspended camera from any point on the mound’s surface. The reel on the right also carried a copper wire connected to a battery (visible below reel). This worked the camera’s electrical shutter-release from ground level once the balloon reached its desired height, which was measured from markings on the cords. The date of this photograph shows that this was the first balloon used at Megiddo, which was made from expandable rubber. It was filled with hydrogen gas imported from France. Unfortunately, this balloon burst after just a few flights (Guy 1932, p. 150). It was subsequently replaced with a balloon made from rubberized silk, which was more robust. The camera was built by Oriental Institute expedition members Olaf E. Lind (expedition photographer) and Edward L. De Loach (expedition surveyor). The electrical apparatus (ibid., p. 149, pl. 2) was made by the Department of Physics at the University of the Chicago. The balloon reached an impressive height of over 120 meters (400 feet). This had the advantage of providing a stationary bird’s-eye view (under ideal conditions). This was an improvement on their use of an extendable ladder which reached an elevation of up to ten meters. The balloon enabled top-down images of large excavated areas of the mound to be taken and reproduced at a large scale, providing an invaluable record and aid to understanding the exposed remains at the time of excavation. Tilting of the camera during flight and the slope of the ground did however lead to distortion of some photographs (Lamon and Shipton 1939, p. xxv), so these were not as accurate as ground plans. The aerial images were combined into a mosaic permitting an overview of the entire mound and its excavated areas and were also published in a series of individual images in the final report (Catalog No. 31). Although there were precedents in Britain and Europe that inspired the Megiddo balloon (see Branting et al., Chapter 7), this was the first time balloon photography was used for archaeological purposes in the Middle East. This photograph was published in Breasted’s survey of the Oriental Institute’s activities, demonstrating to the wider world that the most modern and scientific techniques were employed in their expeditions to document the past (1933, p. 249, figs. 122, 124). Film footage of the balloon being operated at Megiddo can be seen in Oriental Institute’s 1935 film The Human Adventure. Philip Guy’s instructions as set out for the Megiddo balloon equipment in the journal Antiquity (Guy 1932) did have some influence on aerial photography in Poland in the mid-1930s (Barford 2000, p. 55), but use of balloons appears to have fallen out of favor with Middle Eastern archaeological expeditions as more maneuverable airplanes became used for similar purposes (D. Wilson 1982). Use of unmanned balloons for archaeological photography saw a resurgence in the late 1980s, alongside other methods of low-altitude aerial photography such as kites and booms. Some examples in the Middle East include survey work in the eastern desert of Sudan (Castiglione, Castiglione, and Vercoutter 1995, pp. 59–60), Petra in Jordan (de Vries 1992), and most recently at Tel Kinrot in northern Israel (Münger, Pakkala, and Zangenberg 2009).  jg published (selected) J. H. Breasted 1933, fig. 122; Guy 1932, pl. 3; Oriental Institute 1931, fig. 48; Oriental Institute 1935, fig. 23; Rosenberg 2008, fig. 7 (colorized version); Teeter 2010, fig. 7.7 155 oi.uchicago.edu picturing the past 31 31. “air-mosaic” of tHe mound at megiddo photographer, olaf e. Lind, 1932 reprint from Lamon and shipton 1939, fig. 114 This impressive mosaic of aerial images of the summit of ancient Megiddo was prepared by Olaf E. Lind, photographer of the Oriental Institute’s Megiddo Expedition (1925–1939). The individual images were taken using a tethered hydrogen balloon mounted with a camera controlled from the surface of the mound (Catalog No. 30). The original mosaic (at least two were prepared) measured 1.3 meters across (Guy 1932, p. 154). It was reproduced in James Henry Breasted’s survey of the Oriental 156 Institute’s activities (1933, p. 249, fig. 124, lines and annotations removed), published alongside an image of the balloon used to capture the photographs. This helped to illustrate to the wider world some of the advanced recording techniques being employed by the Oriental Institute at that time. The photograph also helped highlight one of the original aims of the Megiddo Expedition — to systematically excavate the entire surface of the mound layer by layer until virgin rock had been oi.uchicago.edu cataLog no. 31 figure c31.1. the first aerial image captured by balloon at megiddo. it shows the northwest corner of the tell after the removal of surface soil (guy 1931, fig. 13, pp. 21–22; breasted 1933, fig. 123) reached (Fisher 1929, p. 9). This great scientific endeavor was clearly an impossible task, as realized in subsequent years of excavation. In the final report, Megiddo I, Seasons of 1925–34: Strata I–V, this image was reproduced again followed by individual photographs of each area overlaid with a 25-meter grid (Lamon and Shipton 1939, figs. 114–23). An example of the first aerial image captured by balloon at Megiddo includes human figures, which provide an additional sense of scale 157 (fig. C31.1). The remains shown in this photograph and also the air mosaic photo do not belong to the same strata, but from levels that spanned several centuries, although mostly belonging to the Iron Age. Areas 1 to 4 on the mound’s west side largely show the uncovering of Strata Ⅲ–Ⅱ, which can be dated to the time of the Assyrian empire, the period of Josiah, and perhaps also into the Persian period (late eighth to fourth centuries bc). The large depression of the water system in Area 2 can also be seen on the west side of the mound. Areas 5 to 8 on the mound’s east side feature mainly the walls of Strata Ⅴ–Ⅳ, covering the Iron ⅡA–B period (tenth to eighth centuries), including parts of the casemate circuit wall (the stratum to which it belongs is still debated) and also the famously misassigned “Solomon’s Stables” (Catalog No. 34). From the excavator’s perspective, the purpose of the aerial photographs was twofold. Firstly, they provided accurate and detailed records of excavated buildings, surveying points, and other features on the mound. These images are still invaluable to archaeologists as many structures were subsequently removed to expose the strata beneath. Secondly, the air-mosaic was used for checking the excavations as they progressed. Philip L. O. Guy (field director, Megiddo Expedition, 1927–1935) and his assistant Robert S. Lamon (surveyor), took the large-scale air-mosaic out onto the mound during the course of excavation, seeing it as a “very great help in disentangling one stratum from another,” helping to verify wall alignments that may have been difficult to locate at surface level and comparing buildings of similar size and design separated by several hundred feet (Guy 1931, p. 21, fig. 13; 1932, p. 154). Guy recommended the projection of lantern slide images of the aerial photographs on to a screen for quiet study off-site (ibid., p. 155). Philip Guy wrote about the plates for these aerial images: “The originals can be seen and studied by people who happen to be in Chicago, where one set will be kept, or who visit us here on the site. But I can’t quite see how I am going to publish them, at their useful scale of 1:250, without producing a book or portfolio that only a son of Anak [a biblical figure of gigantic proportions] could handle” (1932, p. 155). The individual images were never published in full at this large scale, oi.uchicago.edu picturing the past which would have resulted in an oversize folio. Instead, they were reproduced at varying scales in the standard-size final reports, ranging between 1:400 and 1:600 in scale (e.g., Lamon and Shipton 1939, figs. 115–23). Aerial images produced by the Oriental Institute were among color-tinted lantern slides intended for use in public lectures from the 1930s (fig. C31.2). Despite the intention of aerial photography at Megiddo as a tool for disentangling complex relationships between buildings of different dates, the excavators still encountered problems when assigning buildings to particular levels. Stratigraphic methods of excavation (recording a sequence of archaeological deposits, structures, or features) were still in their infancy in the 1920s and 1930s Palestine, even for relatively experienced archaeologists such as Philip Guy (Green 2009, p. 170). Buildings tended to be dated according to pottery, scarabs, and amulets found within rooms, which were figure c31.2. a colorized aerial image of megiddo. many glass lantern slides were hand-tinted by sometimes used and reused expedition participants herbert and helen may (courtesy of oberlin college Library over extended periods. Largespecial collections) scale open-area excavations at Megiddo involved employing large numbers of workmen (up to 200 at one time) sometimes publications, shedding new light on the archaeology moving earth at too great a speed to allow adequate of Megiddo (e.g., Harrison 2004). In summary, the or careful recording. The desire of the excavators to aerial photographs were not such a reliable tool expose complete buildings, streets, and levels one for disentangling the levels of architecture as by one, while paying less attention to stratigraphic originally envisaged, but they continue to serve relationships, indirectly contributed to problems as an important resource in current and future with dating. The assignment of particular buildings research.  jg excavated by the University of Chicago to one stratum or another (e.g., Strata Ⅴ and Ⅳ) continues to be debated by archaeologists, including published archaeologists from Tel Aviv University involved J. H. Breasted 1933, fig. 124; Lamon and Shipton 1939, fig. in present-day excavations at Megiddo. Enlarged 114 and cropped images have been used in subsequent 158