Abstract
The examination of historic landscapes at complex, multi-phased archaeological sites is hampered by the limitations of traditional two-dimensional (2D) visibility studies in geographic information systems (GISs). This paper argues for integrating three-dimensional (3D), qualitative methods into the study of visibility of monumental architecture at ancient sites. By transforming 2D GIS data into 3D representations of ancient built and natural landscapes, visibility studies can be greatly enhanced, adding into analysis perspective, monument shape, and color, as well as changing levels of visibility across time and space. The ancient Egyptian site of Saqqara (29° 52′ 16.55″ lat./31° 12′ 59.58″ E long.) is one of a number of cult locations with monumental architecture neighboring the administrative capital of Memphis. The Old Kingdom cult site of Saqqara (2670 bce–2168 bce) is utilized to demonstrate the potential for 3D visibility studies that better replicate such elements of human perception. This method offers new possibilities for more human-centered studies of past landscapes.
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Notes
Pizlo (2008, p. 1–2) argues that shape is a “unique perceptual property” of objects because of its complexity along multiple dimensions. Humans identify objects by their shape group (the family of objects into which a shape falls) and even when the orientation of the eye of the viewer changes in respect to the object, the viewer continues to perceive the object as within that shape group (“shape constancy”). Shape is thus fundamentally linked to human visual identification of objects and their interpretation.
This follows the chronology utilized by the UCLA Encyclopedia of Egyptology (UEE): http://uee.ucla.edu/chronology/.
Maps utilized for this article include F17-18 (Giza), H21-H26 (Abusir to Dahshur), and I22-I23 (the Memphis floodplain).
Abusir and Saqqara (H21, H22) 1 m, South Saqqara (H24) 1 m, Memphis 1 m, and Dahshur (H25, H26) 10 m.
Currently available NASA SRTM data (https://lta.cr.usgs.gov/SRTM1Arc) and ASTER DEMs (https://lpdaac.usgs.gov/dataset_discovery/aster/aster_products_table/astgtm) offer maximum resolution of 30 m (1:50,000 resolution) and thus offer less detail then the MHR maps, so the MHR maps were selected as the basis of the project’s terrains.
Geomorphological analysis and archaeological field work has demonstrated that ancient ground level in the entire Memphite area was significantly lower than today, due to the buildup of many meters of sand and alluvial sediment from the late Old Kingdom and after (Alexanian et al. 2012; Jeffreys and Tavares 1994, p. 157–158). Lehner offers an in-depth discussion of the evidence for the height of the floodplain in the Old Kingdom (and later) in the Memphite region (Lehner 2009, p. 98–104), estimating a floodplain height of 13–14 m ASL and a peak flood height of 14.5–15 m (Lehner 2009, p. 102).
Many of the areas adjusted of terrain adjusted (Fig. 5) are particularly relevant to the conclusions in this article, as they focus on the eastern-most high points of the Saqqara escarpment, potentially the most prominent areas from the floodplain.
While the floodplain changed most dramatically due to rising ground level and the shifting position of the Nile, areas of the escarpment also changed. In a number of places, Egyptians constructed tombs directly above the collapsed superstructures of earlier burials, now filled in with sand and trash. At the Dynasty 6 cemetery surrounding the Teti pyramid, for example, the excavator found one New Kingdom tomb chapel floor level at 4 m above the floor of the Old Kingdom mastaba tomb below it. The excavator suggested that the entire area was leveled to a similar height during the New Kingdom, significantly above that of the Old Kingdom level (Ockinga et al. 2004, p. 122–123).
All the terrains were produced using ArcGIS’s Spatial Analysts Topo to Raster tool, which interpolates “hydrologically correct digital elevation models” from topographic contours or point data: http://desktop.arcgis.com/en/arcmap/10.3/tools/3d-analyst-toolbox/how-topo-to-raster-works.htm.
This methodology was developed by Dr. Marie Saldaña, described in her unpublished tutorial: “ArcGIS > CityEngine > Unity Pipeline Tutorial.”
It is important to note that elevations for many monuments at Saqqara have not been published, especially structures excavated before modern field survey techniques developed. In Table 1, the base height of some monuments was estimated based on the MHR contour data. Because of the lack of general elevation data at Saqqara, base heights for some monuments are based on elevations for any part of the structure with information on “ground horizon,” such as the interior court height of a pyramid’s memorial temple or the floor level of the start of the pyramid causeway. It is assumed for this project that these represent a ground horizon, although they may differ slightly from the original monument “base.”
This methodology was developed by Dr. Marie Saldaña, described in her unpublished tutorial“ArcGIS > CityEngine > Unity Pipeline Tutorial.”
As 3D archaeological reconstruction projects expand out from highly detailed models of individual buildings to larger sites and landscape visualizations, scholars are experimenting with new techniques for “scaling up” these projects, which demand the production of more schematic, “type-based” models. Giza 3D is one project focusing on an Egyptian site experimenting with this type of representation (Der Manuelian 2017, p. 209–210).
Dennis Ogburn describes a number of factors that would have affected the level of visibility of objects in historic landscapes, including object size, color contrast with surroundings, shape, and intentional placement to be seen against the sky (Ogburn 2006, p. 407).
Lehner (2009, p. 102) estimated a floodplain height of 13–14 m ASL and peak flood of 14.5–15 m. Settlement would logically be placed at a height above the highest maximum inundation level.
Note that the EES elevations are frequently given off their local datum height of 100 m, equivalent to 22.3 m ASL, according to Jeffreys, Malek, and Smith (1986, p. 2).
A step-by-step guide to this process will be published in winter 2017 as a white paper to the National Endowment for Humanities Office of Digital Humanities website: http://www.neh.gov/divisions/odh.
Monument prominence in this work refers specifically to “local prominence,” defined by Bernardini et al. (2013, p. 3947) as the “visual significance from a particular human observation location.”
I would like to thank one of the anonymous reviewers of the draft of this article for pointing this out.
The pyramid immediately east of Teti’s, designated Lepsius 29, has been most recently dated to dynasty 5 by Hawass (2010), although other scholars have assigned it a date to dynasties 9–10 (Lehner 1997, p. 165). Its original height is unknown; we assigned it a height of 35 m in the model as an estimate, but whether it would have originally appeared taller than the step pyramid cannot be determined without more information. It is included in the model to show its possible presence in Dynasty 5, but I am leaving it out of the discussion due to the uncertainties in date and form.
This pyramid was never completed, and thus, the stepped core was never covered with a smoothed limestone facing. The 3D model here shows it complete, at the fully anticipated height, to suggest the intended appearance of the builders.
The valley temple and surrounding pyramid town of Pepy I have not been excavated nor have the posited pyramid towns of Merenre, Djedkare Isesi, or Pepy II, which are all suspected to be located east of the escarpment under the alluvium, following a pattern recognized at other extant sites (Lehner 1997, p. 158, 162; Stadelmann 1981). Pyramid towns are also documented in textual sources.
Note that the view of these pyramids was obstructed by the already existing structures of Pepy I (the immediate predecessor of Merenra and Pepy II) and Djedkare Isesi (Dynasty 5), meaning that the later complexes would have been constructed with full knowledge that they would not have prominence from the early town site.
Certainly crowding at the Abusir area would have been a major factor, as kings ran out of room to construct huge pyramid complexes between existing structures.
Because the height of the pyramid designated Lepsius 29 is unknown, that pyramid was not included in the model during this analysis. Views in CityEngine suggest its position would not have impacted sight lines to Neferirkare, but depending on its height, it may have further obscured the Niuserre pyramid.
As James Osborne has noted, the meaning of monuments and those who view and interpret them are in a constant and shifting relationship over time (Osborne 2014, p. 3–4).
Bernardini et al. (2013, p. 3947) describe the context of viewing as one of the “overlooked social aspects of 'viewship' that affect how meaning is assigned to parts of the landscape by viewers.” That the context for the views of the Egyptian pyramids centered on the capital city, where the royal palace and many elite residences would have been located, is critical to interpretation of the meaning and intentionality of these constructions.
Thomas (2001, p. 176) discusses how different group identities (including gender, status, ethnicity, sexuality, etc.) would impact an individual’s understanding of place. This type of investigation has not yet been attempted at Saqqara to the author’s knowledge, presumably due to the lack of textual material ascribed to anyone besides elite males and royal wives and daughters, especially from the earliest phases at the site discussed here.
While literate ‘scribes’ certainly fall into the social category of elites in Egypt, additional New Kingdom graffiti found in the temple-tombs south of the Unas causeway include many figural examples. These may document illiterate Egyptians interacting with the tomb, and could suggest a wider audience in the necropolis, at least in the later New Kingdom (van Pelt and Staring 2016).
In one inscription, a scribe of the treasury named Hednakhte writes on a chapel of Djoser that he came to "make a stroll and amuse/invigorate himself in the West of Memphis" (Navrátilová 2007, p. 110–111).
Paliou (2013, p. 252) suggests that “built environments are redolent with visual cues that embody messages of power, status, and identity…These cues are encoded in a 3D environment and on many occasions cannot be examine effectively or at all with 2D analytical approaches.”
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Acknowledgements
Vital technical assistance to the project in moving the data into CityEngine was provided by Marie Saldaña, then UCLA graduate student. UCSC undergraduate student Max Van Rensselaer and Center for Integrated Spatial Research staff member Aaron Cole were instrumental in developing the methodology for moving CityEngine data into ArcScene. Additional important data and workflow contributions in GIS at the initial project stages were made by then UCLA graduate student Eric Fries. UCLA undergraduate student Aria Klucewicz provided valuable assistance with digitizing topographic line data, procedural modeling in CityEngine and contributing 3D models. Victoria Schniedewind, UC Berkeley undergraduate, contributed 3D models for the project.
Digital topographic line data and survey information for the Memphite region and Giza were generously shared with the project by Dr. Mark Lehner and the Ancient Egypt Research Associates (AERA). 2D GIS monument data for the entire area of North and Central Saqqara was shared with the project by Dr. Emanuele Brienza, the University of Kore, Enna, Sicily and the University of Pisa. Ana Tavares (AERA) shared crucial high-resolution topographic line maps of the Memphite region.
This research is supported by a National Endowment for the Humanities Digital Start-Up grant, 2015–2016; a 2012–2013 American Council of Learned Societies Digital Innovation Fellowship award; the W. M. Keck Foundation as part of the Keck program in Digital Cultural Mapping at UCLA; and a Faculty Research Grant awarded by the Committee on Research from the University of California, Santa Cruz, 2013–2014.
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Sullivan, E.A. Seeking a Better View: Using 3D to Investigate Visibility in Historic Landscapes. J Archaeol Method Theory 24, 1227–1255 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10816-016-9311-1
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10816-016-9311-1