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The first city at Merv was constructed in the there are upwards of 50 million cubic metres
6th century BCE, probably as part of the of archaeological deposits. These start almost
expansion into the region of the Persian immediately below the surface, with stun-
Achaemenid Empire. Lying on one of the ning preservation, particularly of the 10th- to
main branches of the ancient Silk Roads, 13th-century phase of the city (Fig. 2). Today,
which connected Europe and Africa to the however, little is visible on the surface, but
Far East, a succession of cities flourished. By there is a legible medieval urban landscape
the early medieval period these encompassed – not from the ground, but from the air (see
over 1,000ha (Fig. 1). The great Islamic city below).
of Sultan Kala, capital of the eastern Islamic One of the aims of the Ancient Merv pro-
world, was perhaps the third largest city in ject is to produce an Atlas of Islamic Merv,
the world in the mid-12th century CE (Chase- an interpretation of the city of Sultan Kala
Dunn and Willard, 1993; Chandler, 1987). and its suburbs from about the 8th-13th
Sacked by the Mongols in 1221 CE, it never centuries CE (Williams, 2007a). Characteris-
recovered, by-passed by the changing pat- ing and understanding the spatial organi-
terns of world trade; while later cities devel- sation of early Islamic cities represents a
oped nearby, the medieval city had little sub- major challenge for archaeologists and his-
sequent disturbance. torians, especially as many of the medieval
What this has left us is one of the greatest cities of the Islamic world are buried by later
urban archaeological sites of the world. With urban communities, leaving us to extrapo-
between 4–17m of complex archaeological late from much later urban forms. Merv
stratigraphy, uninterrupted over the 1,000ha, offers a rare opportunity to explore the
nature of an early Islamic city, especially its
flourishing under the Seljuks (cf. the scale
*
UCL Institute of Archaeology,
London WC1H 0PY, United Kingdom
and clarity of the material from Samarra,
tim.d.williams@ucl.ac.uk over a much shorter period: Northedge,
2005; forthcoming). This part of the project
Unmanned Aerial Vehicle Photography 55
Fig. 1: The cities of Merv. The earliest, Erk Kala, was founded in the 6th century BCE; in the
3rd century BCE it became the citadel for the larger Hellenistic city of Antiochia Mar-
ginana (today known as Gyaur Kala). Around the 8th century CE the new city of Sultan
Kala was built to the west, with Gyaur Kala becoming an industrial suburb. In the 15th
century the Timurid city of Abdullah Khan Kala was constructed to the south, with the
walled extension Bairam Ali Khan Kala added in the 18th century.
56 Unmanned Aerial Vehicle Photography
Fig. 2: Excavation of one of the central markets of the Islamic city in 2010. The walls of the
buildings (in the background), destroyed in the Mongol sack of the city, still stand
c.2.5m high, to just below the contemporary ground surface, with the floors and her-
ringbone brick courtyard preserved under the destruction debris and erosion material.
(Williams, 2008) aims to explore the broad The UCL Institute of Archaeology has devel-
structure and organisation of the urban oped a long collaboration with the Ministry
space, including: of Culture in Turkmenistan to research, con-
serve and present the archaeology of Merv.1
a. public/communal versus private/
domestic space – to enable an under- Previous air-borne survey
standing of neighbourhoods, and
social organisation/structuring of the The only vertical aerial photographs (APs) we
urban space; have been able to discover for the area were
taken by the Soviets in the 1970s. Unfortu-
b. public/communal building functions nately, no negatives could be located and
– to enable an understanding of the the surviving prints, which are damaged, do
structure of neighbourhoods, and the not provide a complete coverage and have a
provision of services and facilities, and number of exposure and focus issues. Never-
the central or diffused structure of the theless, the images clearly demonstrated the
facilities; and potential of such an approach, with excellent
c. unbuilt space outside private and pub- definition of buildings, streets, canals, etc.
lic/communal building complexes (Fig. 3).
– to enable an understanding of the A lack of accurate base maps of the region2
nature of the built environment, the complicated the geo-referencing of these
quantity of garden and other space, images. Thus it was decided to acquire a
access, etc. high-resolution satellite image – to provide a
frame of reference against which to attempt
Unmanned Aerial Vehicle Photography 57
Fig. 3: Soviet (1970s) vertical air photograph covering the north central part of Sultan Kala,
with the citadel (Shahriyar Ark) visible upper right and the Madjān Canal winding its
way northward (top).
the rectification of these APs, to act as a base out the Islamic cityscape (Williams, 2008).
map for future survey work, and to provide However, the patchy quality of the 1970s
new comprehensive imagery – and in April photographs, and the resolution of the sat-
2001 the Merv project commissioned an ellite imagery, was sometimes frustrating. It
IKONOS satellite image (Fig. 4). In advance, was clear that a new campaign of aerial pho-
Prof. Peter Dare (Dept of Geodesy and Geo- tography could yield important additional
matics Engineering, University of New Brun- information. In particular, repeated flights,
swick) established a control network, using documenting the site at different times of
a Global Positioning System (GPS), linked to the year (to explore the impact of changing
the International Terrestrial Reference Frame moisture and vegetation) and at different
(ITRF) (Ziebart et al., 2002; Fig. 5). This ena- times of the day (to explore the ability of
bled us to reference the satellite image accu- changing light strengths and angles to high-
rately and to use this as a base for working on light features and surface compaction), could
the existing AP data. We have started to map potentially add significantly to our ability to
58 Unmanned Aerial Vehicle Photography
Fig. 4: Part of the IKONOS satellite image taken in April 2001, showing the north central part
of Sultan Kala (broadly the same area as Fig. 3). Its 1m resolution does not provide the
same level of detail as an AP, but the excellent quality – and the ability to geo-rectify
it – provides the basis for AP analysis.
Fig. 5: The Lecia Global Positioning System (GPS) set up to establish a control point, on one
of the road bridges near Ancient Merv, to geo-reference the IKONOS satellite image.
ing of their application and use (Anderson, photo-mosaics from the data captured.3
2012). The breakthrough for our work has
come with the advent of more sophisticated The equipment
flight-control software, enabling the user The project purchased a swinglet CAM,4
to prepare flight plans more accurately and a ready-to-deploy light-weight mini UAV,
systematically, thus ensuring consistent cov- weighing just 500g, with a wing span of 80cm
erage, and with the development of semi- (Fig. 6). It has an on-board system compris-
automatic systems to create geo-rectified ing a compact 12-megapixel digital camera,
60 Unmanned Aerial Vehicle Photography
Fig. 8: e-mo-tion software panel, showing the map window, the waypoint editor and the photo-
graph location editor (© senseFly LLC).
Fig. 9: Tracklog of a single flight in the north-west of Sultan Kala (output as a kml file from the
software and displayed on the Google Earth satellite image). The UAV took off north-west
from near the centre of the survey area, before starting the systematic north-south runs
pre-programmed in the flight plan.
ture to avoid vibrations. It also checks for a was excellent. At the 4cm/pixel resolution,
level position before triggering the camera few images were blurred or significantly
shutter. Overall, the stabilisation and wind non-vertical; when images were unusable,
correction, despite the lightness of the UAV, the scale of overlap ensured that a compos-
62 Unmanned Aerial Vehicle Photography
Fig. 10: Coverage of APs over Merv, with each coloured box representing a single flight. Note the
larger area covered in the northern part of the survey, when flying at c.105m and captur-
ing 4cm/pixel resolution images, as compared to the smaller survey grids to the south,
at the 2cm/pixel resolution.
ite mosaic was still possible. At 2cm/pixel ground-based computer during the flight.
this was more problematic, as the interval This enables post-flight software on the
between the images was smaller and fluc- ground computer to geo-tag each image
tuating winds did cause some problems, with information on location, height and
with some gaps developing in the coverage. plane positioning (latitude, longitude, alti-
Indeed, it was generally much harder to con- tude_amsl, altitude_wgs84, heading, yaw,
trol the scale of images generated at this level. pitch and roll). It also produces a kml file of
the route (a tracklog), which can be directly
Flight times and wind speeds imported into Google Earth (Fig. 9).
The battery pack on the plane is light; on a
Preliminary results of the Merv survey
mostly level flight, with a fully-charged bat-
tery, flight time would not exceed 25 minutes Coverage
(given an average ground speed of 7–10m The initial plan was to test general perfor-
per second). High winds, or frequent altitude mance of the system, trying different sur-
changes, decrease the endurance of the UAV vey patterns and resolutions. But there was
and its lightness means that it cannot operate also an imperative to capture new data for
in wind speeds in excess of 25km/h or 7m/s, the Atlas project, and it was hoped to cover
although at Merv this was seldom problematic. the entire area of the Islamic city and its sub-
urbs at the maximum 2cm/pixel resolution.
Flight data
However, a short September 2011 field sea-
The UAV’s on-board GPS system provides son meant that we only had a 10-day flying
a complete flight log, transmitted to the window. As a result, the southern area was
Unmanned Aerial Vehicle Photography 63
a b
c d
Fig. 11: The difference between the 2cm/pixel resolution (a & c) and the 4cm/pixel resolution
(b & d); images at the top of the mausoleum of Sultan Sanjar, and at the bottom of an
excavation trench (MSK027).
captured at 2cm/pixel and the northern area undertaken, acquiring some 5,800 individual
at 4cm/pixel (Fig. 10). images of which 5,626 were part of consist-
It was normally possible to undertake ent survey runs (the rest being test runs,
two flights in the morning (between 8.00– flights over specific rural monuments, etc.):
9.00am) and one or two flights in the after-
• 3,553 at 2cm/pixel covering an area of
noon (between 5.30–6.30pm); most days the
4.03km2
electrical power in the Merv region went off
between mid-morning and late afternoon, • 2,073 at 4cm/pixel covering an area of
so battery recharging was problematic. The 5.46km2
flights were timed to take advantage of rea-
sonably strong light, but at a low angle, to This encompassed most of the Islamic
accentuate the largely earthwork nature city of Sultan Kala and its associated sub-
of the site. It would have been desirable to urbs, although there was not time to cover
fly the whole area at the same time each all of the suburban areas to the west of the
day, but this was impossible given the time city (Fig. 11). The coverage was not perfect,
constraints. An attempt was made to fly the partly due to the time constraints, but also
southern half of the area in the afternoons because of the project team needing to get
and the northern section in the mornings, used to the equipment. However, it steadily
but even this was not always feasible. Over improved and the 4cm/pixel flight patterns
the 10-day period a total of 26 flights were were easier to plan and realise.
64 Unmanned Aerial Vehicle Photography
Fig. 13: A low resolution preview of the orthomosaic, as a kml within Google Earth, giving some
indication of the coverage of the image, although not of its quality.
enables the creation of geo-referenced ortho- With the pro 3D version one receives also:
mosaics and digital elevation models (DEM).
• a geo-referenced DEM (in both GeoTIF
The software searches for ‘matching points’
and ASCII format, using UTM coordi-
by analysing all uploaded images, matching
nates)
points and approximate values of the image
position and orientation. These are all used • a 3D mesh model in OBJ format,9 with
in a bundle block adjustment to reconstruct texture coordinates to wrap the ortho-
the exact position and orientation of the mosaic on top
camera for every acquired image. Based on
• and a collection of coloured cloud of
this reconstruction the matching points are
points in PLY format,10 which are pro-
verified and their 3D coordinates calculated.
vided in a local coordinate system
The geo-reference system is WGS84, based
on GPS measurements from the autopilot • parameters exports (ASCII files contain-
during the flight. Those 3D points are inter- ing camera parameters in local metric
polated to form a triangulated irregular net- and geo-referenced coordinates)
work in order to obtain the DEM. This DEM is • ASCII files containing the 3D points in a
used to project every image pixel and calcu- compatible format for BINGO/ORIMA/
late the geo-referenced orthomosaic.7 INPHO, for integration with traditional
With basic 2D processing one receives a photogrammetry packages.
geo-referenced orthomosaic in GeoTIF for-
mat, with UTM8 coordinates (which can be All the services come with useful post-
opened with any standard image viewer, flight reports on the data, its accuracy and
Google Earth, and GIS software), and a geo- the processing.
referenced orthomosaic in KML tile format.
66 Unmanned Aerial Vehicle Photography
The services at present cost about £6,500 complete 3D project, to support the Atlas of
per annum for unlimited use of the 3D sys- Islamic Merv.
tem and about £1,600 for the 2D system. In the 2012 season we plan to capture the
Alternatively, it can be paid for by project: remaining Islamic landscape at 4cm/pixel
for example, the 5.46km² area in the north resolution, and to experiment with lighting
of Merv, captured at 4cm/pixel resolution, angles (times of day), the scale of overlap of
would cost £556 to process through the flight runs, and higher level photography. We
basic 2D package and £2,266 in the full 3D also plan to return in the Spring of 2013 to
package. explore different weather and soil conditions.
We have started to run the northern area
through the post-flight software as part of Acknowledgements
a free trial run provided by the manufactur- This aspect of the Merv project was under-
ers, while we seek to gather resources for taken thanks to Prof. Thilo Rehren and
the full project. The orthomosaic generated UCL Qatar. UCL Qatar provided both the
used 2,007 out of the 2,073 original images, direct financial support to acquire the UAV,
the others being discarded for a variety of software and tablet computer, and also
reasons. The orthomosaic covers an area of more general support for the Merv project.
5.46km2 (546.3ha). The mean size of a pixel Immense thanks go to Jenny Elliott (at UCL
on the ground of the original images was Qatar) for expediting the purchase of the
computed at 4.29441cm. The total number swinglet system, so that it could go into the
of key-point observations for bundle block field in 2011, and to Andrew Blogg (then at
adjustment was 14,942,120; with 5,658,181 KOREC), for being so flexible about obtain-
points for 3D bundle block adjustment. A ing the equipment at such short notice and
low resolution preview of the orthomosaic as providing a pleasant day of training on the
a kml within Google Earth gives some indica- Lea Valley marshes (where, fittingly, in 1909,
tion of the coverage of the image (Fig. 13). the Alliott Verdon Roe made the first all-Brit-
ish powered flight).
Conclusions
Special thanks to the excellent 2011 pro-
Overall this has been an excellent opportu- ject team of Gaigysyz Joraev, Katie Campbell,
nity to experiment with this type of aerial Paul Wordsworth, (George) Alexis Pantos,
survey technology, on a major and complex Elise Thing, Leslee Michelson, Dave Gilbert
archaeological landscape. One short season, and Nick Pearson. Particular thanks go to Gai,
which included a fair amount time getting for his assistance in flying the plane, and to
used to the equipment, has yielded a signifi- Hussein Abdullayev for his driving, patience
cant amount of new imagery, with consider- and engineering skills.
able potential for developing our approaches We would not be able to undertake our
to mapping the medieval Islamic cityscape. work without our close partners in Turkmen-
The UAV was simple to use and deploy, and istan, especially Dr Mukhammed Mamedov
produced excellent results. The 4cm/pixel (Dept of Monument Protection of the Turk-
coverage was considerably easier to plan and menistan Ministry of Culture), and Rejeb
had significantly fewer problems with miss- Dzaparov (Director of the Ancient Merv State
ing images (caused by vibrations or pitch/ Park). I would also like to extend grateful
roll issues), giving us a good quality ortho- thanks to the Park’s skilled and dedicated
mosaic coverage. It also demonstrated a staff, particularly Annamurat Razov and
strong potential to create an effective DTM of Merdan Jumanazarow.
the intricate surface landscape of the cities, Thanks also go to the Japan Funds-in-Trust
with its shallow mounds and depressions. It project, implemented through the UNESCO
is hoped that we can raise the funds for the World Heritage Centre, which established a
Unmanned Aerial Vehicle Photography 67
programme to provide support for the docu- Sensing and Photogrammetry Society, at
mentation of Silk Roads sites in Central Asia, http://rspsoc.org/information-zones/
within the framework of the Silk Road World sigs/uav/.
Heritage Serial and Transnational Nomi- 4 Manufactured by senseFly LLC (http://
nation. Particular thanks to Prof. Kazuya www.sensefly.com) and marketed in the
Yamauchi (National Research Institute for UK by KOREC (http://www.korecgroup.
Cultural Properties, Tokyo) for the original com/).
inspiration for the UNESCO programme; and 5 A geospatial mapping platform produced
to the UNESCO World Heritage Centre, and by Microsoft, at http://www.bing.com/
specifically to Feng Jing for his initial pro- maps/.
ject organisation, Roland Lin Chih-Hung and 6 The manufacturer, senseFLY, states that
Sheela Pimpare for their work organising and map data caching for offline use is forbid-
administering the overall project, and to Yuri den by Google’s license, and that Google
Peshkov (UNESCO Almaty) for his help and Map background will be available in the
support. future, but only with Internet connectivity
Special thanks to the British Embassy in which will not solve our problems in the
Turkmenistan for their support of the project field.
and in particular to the ambassador, Keith 7 http://www.sensefly.com/applications/
Allan, for arranging my visa (without which mapping. This service is powered by Pix4D
this survey would not have been possible), (Pix4UAV version v1.12289).
and for his – and his family’s – considerable 8 Universal Transverse Mercator coordinate
hospitality. system is a 2-dimensional Cartesian coor-
dinate system.
Notes 9 An open geometry definition file format,
1 The Institute of Archaeology’s collabo- widely adopted by 3D graphics applica-
ration with the Turkmenistan Ministry tions.
of Culture stretches back to 1991, when 10 A widely used polygon file format for stor-
the former Soviet Central Asian Republic ing graphical objects which are described
of Turkmenistan gained independence. as a collection of polygons.
Ancient Merv, a State Archaeological Park,
became a World Heritage Site in 1999. For References
background, see Herrmann (1999); for an Anderson, C 2012 Here come the UAVs.
introduction to the current project, see Wired, August 2012 (UK edition): 127–133.
Williams (2004; 2007b). Chandler, T 1987 Four Thousand Years of
2 The best were a series of 1:10,000 maps Urban Growth: An Historical Census. The
published by the Soviets in 1954, but these Edwin Mellen Press. Data available at
are variable in terms of accuracy; although http://irows.ucr.edu/research/citemp/
they were explored as a possible base for citemptoc.htm.
geo-referencing the vertical APs, the lack Chase-Dunn, C and Willard, A 1993 Sys-
of fit, coupled with the quality of the APs tems of Cities and World-Systems: Settle-
themselves, made this problematic. ment Size Hierarchies and Cycles of Politi-
3 In particular, the work of Prof. Danny cal Centralization, 2000 BC - 1988 AD.
Donoghue and Dr Nikolaos Galiatsatos Available at http://www.irows.ucr.edu/
(Dept of Geography, Durham University), papers/irows5/irows5.htm.
and of Prof. Dominic Powlesland (Land- Herrmann, G 1999 A Central Asian city on
scape Research Centre), in archaeological the Silk Road: ancient and medieval Merv.
remote sensing; see also the UAV Special Archaeology International 1997/98: 32–36,
Interest Group, established by the Remote DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5334/ai.0110.
68 Unmanned Aerial Vehicle Photography
Northedge, A 2005 The Historical Topogra- Williams, T 2007b Training courses at the
phy of Samarra. London: British School of old Silk Road city of Merv, Turkmenistan.
Archaeology in Iraq. Archaeology International 2005/06: 53–57,
Northedge, A Forthcoming The Archaeologi- DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5334/ai.0914.
cal Atlas of Samarra. Williams, T 2008 The landscapes of Islamic
Williams, T 2004 Ancient Merv, Turkmeni- Merv, Turkmenistan: where to draw the
stan: research, conservation and manage- line? Internet Archaeology 25. Available
ment at a World Heritage Site. Archaeol- at http://intarch.ac.uk/journal/issue25/
ogy International 2002/03: 40–43, DOI: merv_index.html.
http://dx.doi.org/10.5334/ai.0612. Ziebart, M, Dare, P, Williams, T and Her-
Williams, T 2007a The city of Sultan Kala, rmann, G 2002 Acquisition, registration
Merv, Turkmenistan: communities, neigh- and application of IKONOS space imagery
bourhoods and urban planning from the for the cultural World Heritage Site at Merv,
eighth to thirteenth centuries. in A K Ben- Turkmenistan. Unpublished technical
nison and A Gascoigne (eds) Ceremonial report: UCL. Available via York Archaeol-
and Social Space in the Islamic City. Lon- ogy Data Service [distributor] DOI: http://
don: Routledge, pp. 42–62. dx.doi.org/10.5284/1000164.