Ancient History Ramblings

iPhones versus PCs

It has been a busy day, so I only have one quick item to share. I saw an interesting article in The Wired Campus "Teaching With Technology Face-Off: iPhones vs. PC's." It describes an experiment with 2 sections of a class called "Anatomy and Physiology II" at Houston Community College where one section is given iPhones to view the course's on-line materials, and the other section uses computers to view the material. The result of the experiment so far is:

"...preliminary results of a survey of the students showed that students with the iPhones spend more time studying than those without. Some of that difference could just be the novelty of the technology, however."

It will be interesting to see what the final result of this is.

RSM

More Equipment

As I mentioned in yesterday's post, I have been thinking a lot about equipment needs for PKAP this summer. Since I am always interested in trying out new equipment, some might even say obsessed, I like to keep an eye out for items that we might be able to buy or borrow. A few months ago, Bill Caraher sent me an email with a link to a site that features a camera mount for creating panoramic images. This system, the GigaPan Epic System, allows you to create a gigapixel image that is amazing. I have to admit when I visited the site that I was very impressed with it - the photos on display are spectacular. I realized at once that PKAP desperately needs such a system, or maybe I do. I have been experimenting with attempts at panoramic images using various stitching programs with some success (see below), but would like to create better ones. I have been trying to figure out to come up with the money to purchase one, and finally think I have found a small internal grant at IUP that will allow me to do that. If and when I get it, I will test it out and post some images here.

RSM

GPS

As we get ready for the PKAP season, one of my jobs is to arrange for some of our larger equipment needs. It looks like this year we may have lots of interesting stuff, such as the Trimble R8, some Trimble GeoXh handhelds, a GPR system,a 3D scanner, and a panoramic system. As I struggle to figure out how I am going to get everything over to Cyprus in my carryon, I keep my eye out for new equipment reviews and articles and I happened to see "Now You Can Track Colleagues and Students on Your Laptop" on College 2.0 on the Chronicle of Higher Education website. The article talked about the new technologies, such as Latitude and Loopt, that allow users to track other people based on information received from their phone or wireless device. As the article suggests, this use of technology has many positives and negatives. I have to admit my first thought was that this would be a good way to keep track of students in Cyprus - if it worked overseas.

RSM

YouTube downloads

While universities have been uploading content to YouTube for a while, a new feature allows users to download content posted by colleges. This will allow users to download content, especially lectures, that they can watch later at their leisure instead of watching the streaming feed. Currently the group of participating institutions includes Duke, Stanford, UCLA, and UC Berkeley. It will be interesting to see if this catches on and other institutions join in this venture.

RSM

PKAP Webpages Updated

Since the PKAP season is now starting to loom just over the horizon, I have started working on some  items that I should have worked on last fall. First up, the PKAP web presence. I spent some time this weekend updating the PKAP webpage. I have to confess that I had not been keeping a close eye on it and some of the links were not working properly and some items were missing. I have updated some of it and hope to have it completely updated and working properly by the end of the week.

RSM

Meresamun

It has been a busy week, we are conducting a search for a public historian and that has eaten up most of my time this week. One news item that caught my eye was about the exhibit being planned by the Oriental Institute Museum entitled “The Life of Meresamun: A Temple Singer in Ancient Egypt.” The part that caught my attention was about how the exhibitors used a new CT scanner, the Philips Healthcare Brilliance iCT (“Intelligent CT”) 256-channel scanner, to recreate her facial features. According to the article:

• A video display will allow visitors to view features of Meresamun’s physical state and perform a “virtual unwrapping” of the mummy, enabling them to see how it was prepared. Advanced digital techniques have made it possible to recreate Meresamun’s appearance.

RSM

Medieval Manuscripts Online

As libraries rapidly digitize their collections, one problem that has arisen is how do you keep track of these vast holdings spread across the globe. While it is a good problem to have, it is still a problem facing researchers. The Catalogue of Digitized Medieval Manuscripts is trying to help solve the problem for digitized medieval manuscripts.Their online database, which is searchable, has links to over 1,000 manuscripts with a goal of more than 5,000 entries. I played around on it for a while, and have to admit that it is easy to use and I found myself having fun.

RSM

Google Earth and History

In playing around with Google Earth tonite, I got a chance to experiment with a cool feature called historical imagery. I used it see how the coastal development in the PKAP survey area had changed over time and it was amazing to see how much the area changed in just 5 years.  It is easy to see how urban creep or expansion is threatening our survey area. If you are interested in trying this out, make sure that you have Google Earth 5.0.

2003 Imagery

2008 Imagery

RSM

PKAP Prep

Work continues on the PKAP front. Last weekend we finished up our letter to the Department of Antiquities and mailed it off. We are still tinkering with the budget and turning over rocks hoping to find some money. The big news this week is that a colleague of mine at IUP will be coming to Cyprus for a week to use a GPR (ground penetrating radar) system in the PKAP survey area. This will give us a different data set to work with in interpreting how the land in our area was developed. I'm excited about this because I am going to have a chance to do some training with the GPR system, expanding my limited skills set.

RSM

Treasure Hunters find HMS Victory

Odyssey Marine Exploration announced that it has discovered the HMS Victory (the predecessor to Nelson's flagship Victory). The treasure hunting company released their announcement in conjunction with the Discovery Channel which filmed the expedition to find it and will be showing the footage this week. One of the rumors about the ship is that it sank with a large cargo of gold, perhaps as much as 4 tons. As a Royal Navy warship, the finding could set off a legal battle between the British government and the salvagers.

It is always perplexing to me that an archaeological site underwater is treated differently from a land site. It is ok for a group of treasure hunters to salvage a shipwreck, but if the site was on land , it would not be allowed. The other aspect to this double standard that always irritates me is that the salvage team is almost always described as performing "archaeology" or "archaeological excavation," once again a description that would not be applied to the same work on land by a group seeking buried treasure.

RSM