Aerial photography has long been valuable tool for archaeologists.
Getting a ‘bird’s eye’ view not only impresses audiences but more
importantly it provides useful information on the use of space and the
relationship of topography, architecture, and excavated units. Early
methods of aerial photography include using kites, balloons, cranes, and
very tall ladders. Google Earth also provides good imaging but the
level of detail and the lack of control of when an image is taken make
its usefulness limited.
In recent years many projects have started to employ small drones
equipped with cameras in their excavation. The Eastern Boeotia
Archaeological Project first used drone photography in 2014 with the
project co-directors (Burke and Burns) making a strong attempt to learn
this new and complex recording method.
Both learned the fundamentals of drone flying (including the meaning of
terms like ‘pitch’, ‘roll’ and ‘yaw’) and they learned what was
necessary to repair the drone and camera. Being somewhat out their
element, the directors auditioned several interested students to see if
they were especially adapted to flying. They were impressed with the
transferrable skills that the computer gamers had which worked very well
with drone flying. Toward the end of the summer, after some heavy
knocks and tumbles (using a yogurt container as part of the drone was
the least of our problems) on the drone making it unusable for the rest
of the summer.
It was very fortunate that one of our Dilesi landlords, George Mamonis,
just happened to be a small airplane hobbyist. George was more than
happy to equip his hobby plane with our Go-Pro camera (also note the
yogurt container) for a few evening flights which gave us very good
results in 2014. All of these early efforts were a good start but the
project realized it needed a dedicated staff person for the drone and
aerial photography.
In 2015 our project welcomed Jordan Tynes from Wellesley College for
technological support with aerial photography and digital imaging.
Jordan spent a week with us and made great headway in capturing still
images and video from above.
Jordan also began experiments that have led us from aerial photos to
three dimensional models based on drone data. In 2016 with a grant from
the Friends of the Library at Wellesley College, Jordan was able to
completely revise our aerial and digital photography program. In June
this year he arrived with several very heavy suitcases containing two
drones, a few computers, and a hand-held 3D scanner.
He and his team took daily aerial shots of all excavated areas, and
photogrammetry software produced 3D models and photo mosaics that are
geo-coordinated. This imagery records data at great precision, and
offers an important complement to our traditional architectural
drawings, digital measurements, and descriptions by trench supervisors.
Drone photography also produced new video images of our entire site with
our team in action. In addition we began a program of 3D scanning of
excavated objects, carved objects and complete pots, which we look
forward to sharing in publications, at conferences and on social media.
With these new recording tools we are able to provide a much more
engaging and lively presentation of our excavation. The enthusiastic
responses from audiences show that our work is making an impact. We will
of course continue and expand our digital imaging in 2017.
Brendan Burke & Bryan Burns
University of Victoria & Wellesley College
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