An earlier blog looked at the flights and photography of
archaeological sites in Transjordan and Iraq of
Robert Alexander MacLean in
Summer 1922. Three years later (1925) MacLean joined a Franco-American
expedition excavating at Carthage. One of the Co-Directors was a man with the
memorable name of Count Byron Khun de Prorok. Thanks to 35 years of research by
Michael Tarabulski, it is possible to trace the life and career … and
transformation of Francis Victor Kuhn (= Cohen) (1896-1954) from his birth in
Mexico City to prosperous Central European immigrants through the adoption of a
name from his favourite romantic poet, the more Hungarian-sounding spelling of
his surname to Khun and the doubtful claim to a title. After education in
France, Britain and Switzerland, he had worked on excavations in Italy, visited
Carthage in 1920 and then in 1922 (still just 26) began the first of three seasons of
excavation there. He soon also made a reputation as a galvanizing public lecturer
and toured widely, but was eyed with suspicion by professional archaeologists
who regarded him as a “showman, dabbler, and dilettante” and ultimately his
conduct led to academic scandal and discredit as a tomb robber and to his
conviction Atlantis lay beneath the Sahara. There may have been some further
personal scandal as his first father-in-law (he married four times) succeeded
in ensuring that when his daughter - after just 4 years,
separated from then divorced him, de Prorok gave up not just care of the two children but never saw them again; indeed the children even had their personal names changed when adopted by their
grandfather (all this from the research of Michael Tarabulski).
De Prorok’s reputation as a public speaker was founded in
part on his use of motion pictures taken on his fieldtrips and excavations, a
technique then in its infancy. More than that, however, he was a pioneer not
just in taking aerial photographs for recording and discovery at and around
Carthage, but using a movie camera in the air as well. Whether he was the first
to do so in the Middle East and North Africa region is unclear. Some of his
film was broadcast from time to time by Pathe as part of its popular cinema
News programmes. For example, Pathe Review No. 46 of 1926 included “The Lost Empire
of Africa: A camera chronicle of the American excavations at ancient Carthage
led by the Count de Prorok”.
Neither the Pathe material nor de Prorok’s own copies -
perhaps sold-off or discarded in his last years when he was in serious
financial difficulties, seems to have survived.
What he did and was trying to achieve is explained in some
detail by de Prorok in his 1926 book, Digging
for Lost African Gods (40-41) where he differentiates between films (moving
pictures) and photographs (still shots) and introduces he nearly as enigmatic
colleague:
We took
films of what we were doing. It was the first time that archaeological
research had been filmed, and the idea did not meet with very
great favour at first. Since then, however, the value of the step has
been recognised, and it is a common practise in many universities to-day,
to use films for instruction. Our photographer was the young Prince
Edgard de Waldeck, who had spent a fortnight of intensive training in
Paris, preparatory to this task.
Later (71-2):
These are
the things we talked about on the voyage, because we were all keyed up by the prospect of a great advance.
We talked about what we had done, and what we were going to do. Of all our
future plans, perhaps two stood out most vividly
The first was the use
of the Aeroplane in archaeology. That venture, as an experiment, materialized
three years ago [1922], and since then we have continued, year by year, our
prospecting from the air.
In 1922, we
took our first films and photographs from different heights, which resulted in
our being able to trace the great submerged walls of ancient Carthage. Flying
above the Gulf of Tunis, we were able to film clearly six miles of submerged
wall, showing constructions a hundred and fifty yards from the present shore. I
can still remember the interest with which the news was received by the Royal
Geographical Society, when I lectured to them on the subject in London.
… Our use of
the aeroplane this year is to be more varied. At the moment we are using it to
film the whole coast line, especially at a spot where we have located a sunken
galley a stupendous find, of which I shall say more later and at the legendary
island of Djerba, where we have located a city under the sea
And later still (181):
The sea has also made a great deal of change on all this
peninsula, but it is very difficult to ascertain at what period it encroached
on the land. From the splendid film taken from the air by the late Prince
deWaldeck, who was killed on his way back from Carthage this June, it is
possible to perceive constructions as much as 100 yards out to sea.
This film is
a unique documentation in archaeology, it being the first attempt to film
submarine ruins and record their position. The film and photographs were taken
at a height of 1500 feet and again at 400 feet, and are superior to any record
we could have made on the sea surface. One can trace not only the ancient
sea-wall, which in parts is at a depth of 30 feet, but one can study the
topography of the peninsula to an extraordinary extent. The bed of the Mejerda
is clearly outlined, the wall of Theodosius can be followed approximately, and
even the Roman allotments are defined. Soundings off Carthage were undertaken
in 1898 by M. de Roquefeuil, but only in that portion of the coast where Roman
Carthage was built, that is between La Goulette and Cap Carthage.
That there
was a port at La Marsa is certain from the film (“el Mersa” means a port). The
constructions we perceived underwater are of vast dimensions, and stretch from
Cap Carthage north-east to Cap Kamart; but those at Cap Kamart have not been
marked on any map. There appears to have been a great port here, recalling that
of Alexandria, with an opening, and breakwater at right angles to the present
village of La Marsa. There was a port here in Arab days, but the jetty was
certainly earlier, either Roman or Punic. We have followed these walls in a
small boat as far as Cap Kamart in continuous zigzag lines. From the aeroplane
we could distinguish another line farther out at sea at a depth of about 30
feet, but it is difficult to ascertain, until our final soundings are
completed, whether this was a part of the first constructions. The authorities
of the French Oceanographic Museum at Carthage will charter a special ship to
make soundings along the coast to verify the measurements of these
constructions for future investigation.
Cicero
mentions a fact that historians of Carthage seem entirely to neglect, that the
city “which Scipio destroyed was surrounded with ports.” From the air one can
easily get an idea where ports may have been, in the Sebkha of Sukhra (Salina
of the Ancients), at La Marsa, and lastly in the Lake of Tunis (Stagnum of the
Ancients). We also photographed from the air the sunken galley found in 1908 by
sponge divers, from which a rich spoil of marbles and bronzes has been
recovered for the Museum of Bardo. We hope to examine the Gulf of Tunis this
winter on the chance of finding traces of other ancient ships, five hundred of
which were known to have perished during the Punic wars.
Long before the publication of this book – re-issued in 2004
with a lengthy biographical essay on de Prorok by Michael Tarabulski, de Prorok
had published several articles, gone on an extensive lecture tour (including in
1923 as
Norton Memorial Lecturer of the Archaeological Institute of America) and a
lecture to The Royal Geographical Society in London on 27 November 1923 on his
excavations (published in The Geographical Journal 63.3 (March): 177-187). The last
is important, providing further references to his flying and filming and the
statement that the lecture was “illustrated with kinematograph films taken by
the late Prince de Waldeck” and one photograph of “The
exacavation of Thuburbo Majus” captioned as “Enlarged from kinematograph
film by the Prince de Waldeck”.
Michael Tarabulski has generously shared his 3+ decades in pursuit of de
Prorok including his aerial photographs and aerial movie films. Despite the
role of digitization in revealing the contents of old archives, nothing has so
far emerged from this flying in Tunisia. No further success has attended a
Spanish researcher whose articles have appeared just recently (Garcia Sanchez 2014
and 2016). Nevertheless it seems unlikely all copies of all of these early
aerial movie films are lost.
‘Count’ Byron Khun de Proprok is a fascinating character. Even some of
those who were most critical of his conduct found him personally charming.
Plainly audiences were enchanted – perhaps in part because the tall, handsome
and self-confident young man sometimes chose to present himself in pith helmet
and fieldwork jodhpurs. His lectures regularly merited reports in The New York Times. Whatever his
standing as an archaeologist – mere self-publicising tomb-raider, given to
grand-standing perhaps, he was swift not only to apply the very new technique
of aerial reconnaissance and photography (at least 3 years before Poidebard commenced
his pioneering aerial reconnaissance in Syria) but to take it further with
motion pictures which could exploit a growing public taste for cinema and raise
awareness of archaeological research.
Many thanks to Michael Tarabulski for generously sharing so
much of his research and a detailed correspondence.
Reading:
Garciá Sánchez, J. (2014) “Las excavaciones del conde Byron Khun de
Prorok en Cartago (1920-1925): la colina de Juno y la difusión cinematográfica
de la arqueología cartaginesa/ The Excavations of Count Byron Khun de Prorok in
Carthage (1920-1925): The Hill of Juno
and the Cinematographic Dissemination of Carthaginian Archaeology”, Boletín del
Seminario de Estudios de Arte y Arqueología
80: 129-163
Garciá Sánchez, J. (2016) “Regreso a la tumba de Tin Hinan: nuevas fuentes
en torno a las excavaciones de
Byron Khun de Prorok en Abalessa (Ahaggar, Argelia)/ Tin Hinan’s Tomb revisited: new sources relating to the
Byron Khun de Prorok’s
excavation in Abalessa (Ahaggar, Algeria)”, Cuadernos de Prehistoria y Arqueología Universidad Autónoma
de Madrid (CuPAUAM) 42: 187-208
Khun de Prorok,
Comte Byron (1924) “Recent researches on the Peninsula of Carthage”, The Geographical Journal 63.3 (March):
177-187
Khun de Prorok, Comte Byron (1926)
Digging for Lost African Gods. The Record
of Five Years Archaeological Excavation in North Africa, New York and
London (Putnam)
Tarabulski,
M. (1989) “Recording the past: capturing the history of archaeology on
videotape”, in A. L. Christenson
(ed.) Tracing Archaeology's Past: The Historiography of
Archaeology, Carbondale (Southern Illinois University Press): 179-186
Tarabulski, M. (2004) “The life and death of Byron Khun de Prorok”, in B. Khun de Prorok, Digging for Lost African Gods. Five Years Archaeological
Excavation in North Africa, Santa Barbara (The Narrative Press) 251-267.
Of interest are the recent fictionalised account of
de Prorok:
Turmel. W. (2015) The Count of the Sahara, London (The Book Folks)
… and an nterview
with the author on 18 November 2015
