The UCL Institute of Archaeology Air Survey Photographs: an archaeological reference collection of Royal Air Force aerial imagery from 1918–1939

This blog was first featured on the EAMENA blog on September 4, 2017. It is replicated here by the author. The digitised collection is available for browsing through an Album on our Flickr. The collection material is accessible through contact with the UCL Institution of Archaeology Collections Manager Ian Carroll: i.carroll@ucl.ac.uk.

The UCL Institute of Archaeology Collections Air Survey photographs comprise a series of glass plate negatives, cellulose negatives, safety negatives, and prints of Royal Air Force (RAF) aerial photographs taken between 1918 and 1939. The photographs are predominantly of Iraq, the former Transjordan, Egypt, and Sudan (see distribution map). Recently, EAMENA put out a call for information regarding collections of aerial photography. One of the reasons for this is that the aerial photography conducted by the Royal Air Force in the Mandate territories was not comprehensively archived, and some of it was destroyed once it had served its immediate use. What has survived is fragmented, so we are trying to find and piece together those fragments because these images are an amazing resource for discovery, monitoring and analysis of archaeological sites. The UCL collection is one of the larger collections of RAF imagery from the Middle East, and its survival for use in archaeological research was no accident.

One of the glass plate negative boxes, and glass plates encased in RAF envelopes at the UCL Institute of Archaeology Special Collections. Photograph: Rebecca Repper.

This collection originated from a deposit made by O.G.S. Crawford to The British Museum of "obsolete" photographs collected from the RAF during a tour of Iraq, Transjordan, and Egypt in 1928, made at his own expense. In a presentation to the Royal Geographic Society (RGS) and published in The Geographical Journal in 1929, Crawford describes how he enlisted the help of the Air Ministry to photograph sites of archaeological interest, and stated that "these, and also many existing but obsolete negatives abroad, should be handed over to the Director of the British Museum, to form the nucleus of a national collection." The exact contents of this original deposit, however, are not entirely clear from the written record. Crawford stated to the RGS a number of 1,700 negatives; the British Museum Trustee Minutes of 8th June 1929 state 1,150 glass plate negatives and nine rolls of film. This original deposit is likely to be those items now in the UCL Collection, numbered AP1–1356, or possibly all the way to AP1405 (note that there are no items between AP1101–1202 due to misnumbering). As stated, these are predominantly glass plate negatives (most likely gelatin dry plate). It is important to note that many of these are re-photographs of prints or mosaics, which was possibly a mechanism used by the RAF for copying developed material. The original rolls of film have been copied to safety negative film.

Crawford arranged with the Air Ministry for further photography of archaeological sites to be contributed, and the collection continued to grow from these subsequent deposits. The British Museum Trustee Minutes note at least two deposits of this nature: one in 1931 (Trustee Minutes 12th December 1931) and another in 1938 (Trustee Minutes 14th May 1938). These are predominantly 5 x 5 inch cellulose negatives, and some rolls of film (that have been copied to safety negatives). The UCL collection also includes photographs taken as part of Sir Aurel Stein's aerial survey of Iraq with the help of the RAF in 1938 and 1939, so at least one further deposit must have been made, but whether this came from the Air Ministry or from Stein himself has not yet been confirmed. Prints of the majority of this Stein survey material are at The British Academy Archive, though there is some variation in annotation (ASA/3 - see our previous blog, and the Flickr photoset by APAAME). This collection of aerial photographs was originally going to be transferred from the Department of Western Asiatic Antiquities at the British Museum to the Ordnance Survey, where a plan for an aerial photographic library was underway (Trustee's Minutes 12th October 1940, 11th October 1941), but this never came to pass. Instead it was agreed that the collection should be transferred to the Library of the Institute of Archaeology (The National Archives, OS1/384, letter marked '58A', dated 31 May 1949) at Crawford's suggestion (Trustee's Minutes 9 July 1949) to continue as a collection for archaeological reference and something that would be of interest to students. It is now part of the UCL Institute of Archaeology Collections.

Aerial photographs AP816-920, 922-950 of the site of Ur. Background imagery: Google Earth.

The photographs are vertical, oblique, and photo-mosaics. Many of the vertical images comprise series of overlapping photographs. These include such major sites as Ur (AP702–726, 742–886, 888–896, 908–915, 951, 953–955), Mosul (AP451–477), Sulaymaniya (AP678–699), Tell Afar (AP13–27), Erbil (AP319–356), Ctesiphon/Seleukia (AP108–173), Azraq (AP972–1021), Abydos (AP1241–1283), and Giza (AP1615–1622, 1623a).

Photo-mosaics produced from the aerial photography taken by 14 Squadron are particularly common for former Transjordan, including a continuous photo mosaic over four frames of the River Jordan (AP1086–1089), and for the area of Petra and Beidha (AP1286–1289). In only a few instances are the individual frames and the photo mosaic both included in the collection, for example, for Qasr Uweinid (AP1036–1038 and AP1040). This is useful because the creation of a photo-mosaic introduced further distortions into the imagery.

Qasr Uweinid individual frames AP1036-1038 (above), and their mosaic AP1040 (below). Background imagery: Google Earth.

The collection captures some sites in the process of excavation, such as Ur and Khorsobad, and also includes a small number of ground photographs of these two sites (AP645–665 and AP1806–1812, respectively), as well as a single ground shot of Nineveh (AP1805).

The majority of sites captured in Egypt and Sudan follow the Nile, including an extensive collection of photographs of the well-known site of Giza, as well as other pyramids further south. An exception is a small series capturing archaeological sites in the vicinity of the northern section of the Suez Canal and the Sinai Peninsula (AP1591–1614).

The distribution of sites featured in the UCL Institute of Archaeology Air Survey photograph collection negatives. Background imagery: Google Earth.

This collection was digitised by the APAAME project in 2016 in agreement with the UCL Institute of Archaeology, and in co-operation with the EAMENA project. Where known, images have been geo-located, and this process is on-going. Interestingly, one image, AP357, seems, due to the architectural style visible in the photo, to not be of a site located in the Middle East or North Africa region at all and remains a mystery. Geo-location is assisted by the annotations on the (deteriorating) photograph envelopes; where this type of information was available, this has been included in the image caption on the APAAME Flickr page. These annotations are particularly rich for the original deposit by Crawford, where the majority of glass plates are enclosed in RAF aerial photograph annotated envelopes (or replacement 'Antiquity' or 'Ordnance Survey' stationery), and are secured in wooden glass plate cases.

Only the negatives were digitized. Some interruptions in the sequence of photographs suggest some items are missing, while others have been broken (where possible the latter have been included in the scanning process). There are also prints in the collection, but these have not yet been fully investigated. All enquiries regarding access to the collection and reproduction of the images must be directed to the Collections Manager, Ian Carroll: i.carroll@ucl.ac.uk. We thank Ian Carroll and UCL Institute of Archaeology for their co-operation and assistance during the lengthy digitisation process. Thanks also go to Francesca Hillier (The British Museum Archive), Patricia Usick (The British Museum Egyptian Department), and Angela Grimshaw (The British Museum Middle East Department), who have assisted in our enquiries regarding the provenance of this collection.

The digitised collection can be browsed on the APAAME Flickr page.

Information regarding the UCL Institute of Archaeology and their Collections and Archive can be found at the following links: http://www.ucl.ac.uk/archaeology; http://www.ucl.ac.uk/archaeology/about/facilities/collections

Sir Alexander Kennedy (17 March 1847 – 1 November 1928)

Sir Alexander Kennedy

At the time of his first visit to Petra in 1922, Sir Alexander Kennedy was 75 years. The visit certainly made an impression on him as he arranged to return the following year to spend a month there in studying its history and antiquities.   Although he was not an archaeologist by trade (he was senior partner of an engineering firm) – he was one of those early pioneers quick to recognise the importance of aerial photography to archaeologists in attempting to understand the landscape setting, as well as the distribution and range of sites (Bewley & Kennedy 2013: 231). Kennedy lamented the lack of a thorough scientific study of the area around Petra. Of the early visitors who came after Burckhardt in 1812, many of whom were unable to remain for much more than two or three nights, he observed that “…although many published their experiences, practically nothing of scientific value resulted from their visits” (Kennedy 1924: 273).

In a talk he later gave to the Royal Geographical Society, Kennedy gives an insight into what may have driven him to devote his energy to further study of Petra – he considered Musil’s second volume of Arabia Petræa to contain the “first map which possessed any value”, and then Brünnow and Domaszewski’s maps made from their visits in 1897 and 1898 to be the most accurate. He praised their work, however, he observed omissions and guesswork - “the irregularity and roughness of the ground make it extremely difficult to cover every square yard of some 6 or 8 miles; but nothing less would be for any investigation to be entirely exhaustive” (Kennedy 1924: 274).

During his second visit to Petra in 1923, Kennedy, despite his advanced age was busily engaged in mapping and photographing the area in detail. Towards the end of the season Kennedy suffered a stroke, from which he is reported to have recovered rather quickly. Despite the physical strain of the work, he again ventured to continue his study of Petra in 1924, “having at his own expense arranged with the Air Force for a complete aerial photographic survey of the whole area”. 
Philby (1948: 216) recalls;

“I worked with him on the ground again, and the result was a splendid, profusely illustrated volume called Petra, to which I wrote a foreword, descriptive of the country and its people. It was a remarkable feat for a man, who had never been in the East before, to perform between his seventy-sixth and seventy-eighth years.”

Kennedy’s securing of the services of the RAF squadron at Amman enabled a vertical survey of a wide area around the city centre to be taken - an area covering c.85km². 

“For an audience familiar with ground views, but unable to visualise the context and landscape, this would have been revelatory. But it was more than a novel view or general photomap; Kennedy evidently examined closely those frames that covered the central area of the city.” (Bewley & Kennedy 2013: 231)

“The air-plane view shows also very distinctly the lines of the Roman streets and the outlines of some of some of the principal buildings or places, and many other points quite unrecognizable on the ground.” (Kennedy 1924: 278-9). 

Oblique view of Wadi Musa, Petra - Kennedy (1925) Source: Wikimedia Commons.

Bewley, R. & Kennedy, D. (2013). Historical Aerial Imagery in Jordan and the Wider Middle East, in: W. S. Hanson & I. A. Oltean (eds) Archaeology from Historical Aerial and Satellite Archives. London: Springer: 221-242.
Kennedy, A. B. W. (1924). The rocks and monuments of Petra. The Geographical Journal, 63.4: 273-295.
Kennedy, A. B. W. (1925). Petra. Its history and monuments. London: Country Life.
Philby, H. StJ. B. (1948). Arabian Days. An autobiography. London: Robert Hale Limited.

Research: Robert Alexander MacLean

Amongst the pioneers of Aerial Archaeology – albeit on a peripheral level, is this enigmatic character.

The American Journal of Archaeology for January-March 1923 published the abstracts of lectures given the previous December at the annual conference of the Archaeological Institute of America (AIA). One abstract is entitled “The Aeroplane and archaeology”, the author a professor at University of Rochester in New York State. Sadly, never published and tantalizing because of what MacLean had to say:

“Among the many services which the aeroplane is rendering at the present time not the least is the aid which it is giving in archaeological discovery. In countries such as Mesopotamia where there are few maps to guide the archaeologist, and in portions of Arabia which are difficult of access by ordinary means of travel, the aeroplane has already proved to be a valuable subsidiary help in making preliminary surveys, and in locating historical ruins and the possible sites of ancient cities. Two illustrations will suffice. This last summer I went by aeroplane from Amman in Transjordania to visit some Roman ruins at ‘Kasr Azraq’ in the Syrian desert. … Another noteworthy feature was the presence on the oasis of about twenty pools of clear cold water surrounded by a Roman wall. It was interesting to observe that while this wall, only portions of which remain, could hardly be distinguished by an observer on the ground, its alignment and complete circuit of the pools could be seen clearly from the air.

My second illustration is from Mesopotamia. Among the many lost cities of ancient times may be mentioned two which Xenophon speaks of in the Anabasis …. Until quite recently the difficulty in determining the site of these two cities was due to the fact that the course of the Tigris in ancient times was not known to us. But by recent observations and photographs taken from the air it is now pretty well established that that portion of the Tigris which lies to the east of Xenophon's Median Wall had its bed about fifteen miles to the west of the present bed of the river. The depression seen from the air and the line of mounds along the depression were the clues which led to what is thought to be the discovery of the sites of both Opis and Sittace.”

'General Meeting of the Archaeological Institute of America, December 27-29, 1922',American Journal of Archaeology 27.1 (Jan. - Mar., 1923): 68-69 of 57-71.

Quite apart from what MacLean is ‘discovering’ from the air and what other aerial photographs he may have had, is the puzzle about how he came to be in a position to fly over these places at all, especially in the case of Azraq which was the specific object of the flight.

Qasr el-Azraq today. APAAME_20080909_IAR-0205.

MacLean is an intriguing character and deserving of a fuller treatment which can to some extent be done thanks to a large number of small snippets of information available elsewhere. Here it is just possible to sketch a few details relevant to Aerial Archaeology at what is a very early date for such work in the Middle East – Poidebard only arrived in Syria to begin his flying programme in 1925.

MacLean, the son of Scottish immigrants to Canada, is said to have been:

“… teaching at the University of Manitoba when World War One broke out. He enlisted immediately, in August, 1914, in the Winnipeg Grenadiers and landed in England with the first Canadian contingent in October of that year. He was commissioned as an officer in the British Imperial Army in January, 1915, and served in France for eight months. In 1916 he was sent to the Middle East where he served in various capacities and in various countries - Mesopotamia, Persia, Arabia, and India. For the last year of the war he was engaged in political work, coming into contact with such personalities as Gertrude Bell, H. St. John Philby, Sir Percy Cox, and Col. T. E. Lawrence.”

He is described as having “served as staff captain under General Maude, being engaged particularly in intelligence and political work” and elsewhere he said he “arrived in Bagdad with the British army on 11 March 1917”. MacLean was soon moved westwards and is described as having been a “member of General Allenby’s staff when the British army marched on Jerusalem”.

In the magazine of his university he recounts the flight of 1922 which evidently included the flight to Azraq. Although he does not say so, he was evidently flying across Jordan and Iraq in one of the RAF aircraft of the newly developed Airmail Route from Egypt to Basra, initiated in June-July 1921. The few passengers carried were normally only service or important government personnel, implying MacLean had some influence.

MacLean explains he was in Baghdad as part of the celebration marking the laying of the foundation stone of the University of Baghdad and that he also met King Feisal. Returning west, his aeroplane had engine trouble and they had to land and spend a night in the desert.

There is much more one may add but two salient points to note are that MacLean is untraceable in the records of those who have spent many years researching military intelligence in the Middle East during the First World War. On the other hand, if he was – like that other oddity in the region, Richard Meinerzhagen, a fantasist, he nevertheless seems to have known enough people of influence to be given a flight to Azraq, taken on two trips on the new Airmail Route, perhaps also flown by the RAF in Iraq and supplied with some aerial photos for his lecture.

Sadly, one avenue of research is closed. MacLean’s sole child, a son, is long dead and had been estranged from his father for many years; the son’s children, brought up in France and French citizens, came to me for information about their grandfather.

But there must be some record of his First World War service and perhaps how that led to his flights in 1922. Perhaps he really did know Bell, Philby, Cox and Lawrence. In 1922 the senior British Political Officer in what they still called Transjordania was … Harry Philby. Shortly after MacLean flew across Jordan, Meinerzhagen crossed it on the ground. At the far end of the route, MacLean would have found the British residents of Baghdad included both Gertrude Bell (Oriental Secretary) and Sir Percy Cox (High Commissioner for Iraq).

Many of the personal details of MacLean’s long life and career have been traced as have his publications (including two books published privately). The gap is his military service.

– David Kennedy

Research: Pioneers - On a further personal note …

In a recent post on Insall, one of the three RAF pioneers in aerial reconnaissance over the Airmail Route and one of the first to publish an aerial photo of a Kite, I noted that a decade later he was the Station Commander of RAF Abu Sueir in Egypt where my father completed his flying training in 1936. I had long regretted that my father’s training at a Middle East base which was explicitly intended to produce pilots for service in the East, saw him posted to India for several years. Three of the other new pilots were posted to Iraq and one to No. 14(B) Squadron at Amman (killed shortly after in an accident).

In is now clear that although my father was never stationed in Iraq and Transjordan, he twice flew along the Airmail Route in those two Mandates. Putting together a few brief entries in his logbook, a handful of small photos and a postcard he sent to his brother-in-law back on the Northwest Frontier of British India, the episode is definable.

The 'Flying Boat' 'AWARUA'

About 17 July 1939 he was sent to Heliopolis in Egypt to collect and ferry back to India, one of the new Blenheim light bombers with which the RAF was being re-equipped. He recorded the flight on an Imperial Airways flying boat from Karachi via the Gulf and Habbaniya in Iraq to Tiberias on the Sea of Galilee and finally Alexandria – a two day journey. A few photos of the flying boat and a postcard from Tiberias:

Postcard from Tiberius.

I am having a marvellous time on board this flying boat ‘AWARUA’. We have just had Tiffin at Tiberias on Sea of Galilee.

By chance, that same flying boat was transferred the very next month to service in Australasia with Tasman Empire Airways Ltd (TEAL) on its NZ to Sydney route. As it happens there is a contemporary account now online of that delivery flight including:

Rapid refuel and then off towards Palestine where we land on the Sea of Galilee at Tiberius (sic), and here the skipper fills a special bottle with Galilee water to take to New Zealand for the christening of his new baby.

From Tiberius (sic) until we pass down into the Persian Gulf this next stretch is invariably hot and bumpy and the pipe line desert below never looks inviting especially when in a flying boat, …

http://friendsofthesolentflyingboat.wordpress.com/zk-ama-delivery-flight/

My father’s logbook records his own flight back to India in August 1939, piloting his Blenheim:

5 August: Heliopolis – Habbaniya
5 August: Habbaniya – Shaibah
6 August: Shaibah – Sharjah
6 August: Sharjah – Karachi

That first stretch of 4 hours on 5th August would have largely retraced the Imperial Airways route across the Jordanian panhandle following the track alongside the oil pipeline which seems to have replaced the initial RAF track around the southern edge of the Harret ash-Shaam lavafield. Sadly he took no photos – almost 60 years before my own first flights in the same area.

- DLK

Research: Gilbert Insall - Pioneer over Jordan … and Sinai and Iraq

Our recent flights over the Jordanian Panhandle have been a reminder of the RAF pioneers who discovered, photographed and published Kites in the 1920s. One of the principle trio was Gilbert Insall.

Insall had published a photograph of a Kite in 1929 (which has now been ‘rediscovered’ – Blog 'The First Kites') taken while he was commanding a squadron in Iraq. Several years later he was back in the Middle East as Station Commander of RAF Abu Sueir in Egypt, a Flying Training School. Edward Mole, the Chief Engineer at Abu Sueir in 1937-8, subsequently published a delightful autobiography of his RAF career including flights made with Insall. By then Insall was 42 and his enthusiasm for archaeology as undiminished. Mole records that Insall frequently flew out over Sinai, located sites, landed and set-to with the shovel and pick he carried with him. In case the C.O. got into trouble, Mole sometimes flew with him in another aircraft and was roped into the digging.

From above, the pattern of an old settlement could clearly be seen on the desert sand, and on sighting one, Insall would land nearby and dig for objects.

Later still, Insall and Mole flew together to Baghdad to visit RAF friends.

We set off together in two Audax aircraft to make the long trip across the featureless Arabian desert. There were no radio navigation aids in those days, but all we had to do was to find and follow the oil pipe line which ran straight as a die for hundreds of miles. We took with us all necessary desert flying equipment – emergency rations, water bottles, first aid kits – and Ghoolie Chits.

Interesting that by 1937-8, the air route across the Jordanian Panhandle had evidently shifted from the track and furrow ploughed for the RAF-pioneered Airmail Route of 12 years before along the southern fringe of the lavafield, to the much more straightforward line of the new oil pipeline further north. This was evidently the route followed by Imperial Airways when it took over the Airmail task from the RAF and explains the series of circular route-markers with numbers from (at least) 24 to 16 (as you flew east) (For an example see Flight 20141015 blog).

In Iraq, Insall had Mole fly him over Samarra so he could photograph it from the air – as he had had done when he flew Crawford there in 1928. Hopefully his aerial photos survive – his son had an RAF flying career, too, and is now a noted writer on archaeological work in Oman.

Abu Sueir, Sir P Sassoon, G Cpt Insall VC Inspecting Junior Term 1936.

On a personal note, Insall senior was the Station Commander at Abu Sueir when my father learned to fly there in 1936 and officiated at his Passing Out Parade.

- David Kennedy

Insall, G. S. M. (1929) “The aeroplane in archaeology”, Journal of the RAF College, Cranwell 9.2: 174-175.
Mole, E. (1984) Happy Landings, Shrewsbury.
Kennedy, D. L. (2012) “Pioneers Above Jordan. Revealing a prehistoric landscape”, Antiquity 86: 474-491.

Research: The first Kites

In 2012, David Kennedy’s ‘Pioneers above Jordan’ article acknowledged the contribution to aerial archaeology by Royal Air Force pilots flying on the Cairo-Baghdad Airmail Route. The individuals who published the first photographs of a site they had termed ‘Kites’ were Percy Eric Maitland (1895-1985), Lionel Wilmont Brabazon Rees (1884-1955) and Gilbert Stuart Martin Insall (1894-1972).

Maitland 1927 The 'Works of the Old Men' in Arabia, Antiquity 1 (2): plate III.

Maitland’s article in the second issue of the new Journal Antiquity introduced the wider world to the concept of the ‘Works of the Old Men’ using aerial photographs taken by the RAF during passes of the Cairo-Baghdad air mail route. On Plate III a most striking Kite is presented as ‘Walls and Fort in Basalt Country’ – this has been located as ‘Wisad Kite 40’ at 31°52'43.54"N, 37°55'59.01"E and can be clearly seen on Bing Maps despite the encroaching sands over the low basalt walls of the Kite. From the collection of aerial photographs taken back to the UK by O.G.S. Crawford (now housed in UCL Special Collections for the Institute of Archaeology) we know this photograph is actually a mosaic of a series of vertical photographs taken over the kite.

Wisad Wall Tangle 2: APAAME_20091004_DLK-0045. Photographer: David Kennedy.

The other photograph on the plate, ‘Walls and Enclosures in Basalt Country’ may picture part of a kite amongst a tangle of walls – but the complex is now interrupted by a road and the El-Wisad Desert Patrol Post so we cannot quite clarify what the principle structure may once have been. We have identified the site as ‘Wisad Wall Tangle 2’: 31°53'6.82"N, 37°57'17.33"E.

Rees published photographs and images of a few Kites in his article ‘The Transjordan Desert’, also in Antiquity, but later in 1929. In ‘Circles Etc. in the Basalt Country South-West of Azrak’ on Plate III you can see the kite located at 31°47'54.56"N, 36°43'15.56"E, which we have photographed as ‘Amra Kite 4’.

Rees 1929 The Transjordan Desert, Antiquity 3 (12): plate IV.

On Plate IV he shows a photograph of ‘Kites south of Kasr Azrak’ which is a well defined chain of Kites at 31°51'51.57"N, 36°48'46.89"E with Azraq Kite 46 the most prominent in the photograph, but today the Kites are almost destroyed beneath increased farming and development around Azraq.

Azraq Kite 46 in 2012 with a newly planted olive grove across the site. APAAME_20120522_DLK-0607. Photographer: David Kennedy.

In Plate VI he identifies a ‘Large Round Enclosure’ and two Kites on the photograph ‘Kazr Azrak and Surroundings’ but the ‘Large Round Enclosure’ is now entirely buried beneath the modern town (see Kennedy’s Big Circles article for information regarding this kind of feature), and one Kite, approximately 31°53'29.01"N, 36°50'5.39"E, is buried beneath the modern road, but the other is visible still at 31°53'39.43"N, 36°49'46.18"E. The photograph of ‘“Tell A”, near Landing-ground E’ on plate IX identifies several kites in the vicinity of the basalt mesa which can still be clearly seen from the air at 31°48'18.46"N, 37°25'59.97"E, and have been photographed and visited by the project several times.

Original RAF image from Insall (1929 The Aeroplane in Archaeology, Journal of the Royal Air Force College, Cranwell 9.2: between pages 174-175) juxtaposed with the modern imagery from Google Earth. Composed by Travis Hearn.

Also published in 1929 but less well known was Insall’s ‘The Aeroplane in Archaeology’ in the Journal of the Royal Air Force College, Cranwell (9.2: 174-175). The well defined kite with three tails he published eluded us for quite some time, but a review of the basalt region recently conducted identified the Kite at 31°47'51.06"N, 37°33'46.61"E alongside another Kite. Crossing the tails in the background can be seen the old bulldozed track laid out through the desert by the ground parties creating the new airmail route that acted as a guide for the pilots. More prominent now in the satellite imagery is a track bulldozed through the head.

Comparing sites

Events of the recent past have not been kind to the archaeology of Iraq. Massive agricultural works and the expansion of modern cities (and, in some cases, large-scale illicit excavation) have altered many sites and landscapes beyond recognition. As we compare historical aerial photographs with recent satellite images, it's gratifying to find sites where the archaeology appears to have survived relatively unscathed. This is part of the incredible sprawling ruins of the Islamic period city north of Samarra, which seems to have changed little since it was photographed in 1918 by pilots of the Royal Air Force. This image and hundreds from the same time period are now housed in the National Archives, London.