 My name is John Harrison. Welcome to a day in the life of an Egyptian archaeologist. We will continue our discussion with Dr. Mohammad Solomon about his project in Kayoto, Japan and Alexandria, Egypt. However, today we are honored to speak with a living legend, Dr. Farouk Al-Baz. He is an Egyptian-American space scientist and geologist who worked for NASA's Apollo program as supervisor of lunar science planning. He also served as secretary of the Lunar Landing Site Selection Committee and chaired the astronaut training group. Additionally, Dr. Al-Baz was the director of the Center for Remote Sensing at Boston University and a research professor in its archaeology department. Welcome, Dr. Al-Baz. Please meet Dr. Solomon. He is an Egyptian archaeologist. He is currently in Kayoto, Japan, learning about remote sensing and GIS to understand the history of Alexandria better to develop sustainable strategies that include enhancing people's lives. His PhD research focused on the water installations in Alexandria, Egypt. We thought it would be enormously helpful to get your insights on Dr. Solomon's project, the links between geology and archaeology and the application of remote sensing and GIS in these two fields. There is really no difference between archaeologists and geologists. The only real difference is the scale of time. Geologists look at the history of the Earth from the beginning of the Earth when the Earth was born. Archaeologists think about the human beings when they began to roam around the Earth. Maybe the human beings moved around for the last four million years, but the geologists think about the Earth in the last four billion years. So the difference is in the millions versus billions. Because when you are close to the terrain, to the scene where you're studying, you can see some things right there because of the fact that you can interpret what is here and what's happening. But the view from above, first by a plane and then by a satellite image, can show you the whole region and the regional setting of the place that you're staying in. And that is very different and that's very essential. It's very important to see how human beings came here and why did they come here specifically, rather than somewhere else. And what did they find in here specifically? Was it because it's lower or because it's higher so they can see from a rock? So the view of the region as a whole is very important to your understanding of the little place that you're looking at. First, at NASA, when we were looking at the moon, it was quite an education because here we are looking at some place that we have never seen before. I was looking at images taken by a satellite, an unmanned satellite before the Apollo missions started. The camera, good camera, taking views of the whole moon and at least of segments of the moon that the astronauts would fly over. And both the astronauts and we had never seen these things before. So it was up to me to look at them, interpret them, see what is important, what is fine. And when astronauts would go there, what is it that we need them to get us more than what these images were? They cannot add to it unless they know exactly what is in those. So they should know what we know so that they can add to our knowledge. So that was a very important thing to do. And from there on, we started looking at pictures from one satellite set to another satellite set. And so the remote sensing became all right. We have used, first we can use a camera. Okay, here are a picture from a photograph from a regular film. Then we're going to have the multispector stuff. They just would look at it from with a different filter and then looking at a different filter and then putting the two images together to see what is it that we can see in addition. So we came to see what is the potential of our increasing our knowledge about the Earth and its features from a varied number of sensors. It was amazing when I got into the program in 1967, about March, I think, yeah. And found out that geologists are kind of people that astronauts hated. One of the astronauts had said I don't want to see a geologist with a touch a geologist with a 10 foot pole, meaning I don't want to see any of these young. And they realized what is that right where I started looking into it, and they realized that it's actually because the astronauts were being taken into classrooms and being taught as if we are getting kids to teach geology one on one. They were talking to them about the composition of minerals, the composition of rocks and and what the value of these acidic rocks versus the alkaline materials and all of these things that they will have absolutely nothing to do with they are not going to have any knowledge, they will not look at sections. Why are we teaching them. So there was an immediate question in my mind, but why are geologists trying to teach astronauts geology the way we were taught. They are not going to be asked geological questions. We need them to rock to collect rocks and as much variety of rocks as we can. So what is variety where different colors, some that may be a Christian in and some are not some tight and some some hard and some for travel. This is the variety that you can ask somebody that who knows nothing about this material. So don't really talk to them about the variety of rocks. What are the rules especially the views from above what is it that the astronauts are going to look from. It's none of his business, but what the composition of these rocks that he's looking at this might be and how were they formed. He wants to fly the machine. He wants to approach him differently. For instance, when I tried to get in this astronaut core and try to get them interested. I picked up lunar pictures covering the whole side of the one that they are going to fly over and put them together on a big room. I put the orbits in different colors. The first orbit, the second orbit, the third orbit because these are the first three orbits are very important to fix their location. And during these few orbits, they were going to look through a sextant through this telescope to try to identify certain points. The points were selected by the engineers to say if they can see this one we know where they are. And if we can see that one here then we know where what the flight line looks like or how. So they really wanted to figure out exactly where they're flying. So I put these pictures out there. And they put the orbits and they said okay now let's fly over and see what is it that we're seeing. So we will see and because I said before you get to point one. Look at the stuff before it so that you can recognize it because if you don't recognize it, then you'll miss it. And they give you seven points you'll miss three or four and you'll get only three. So let's try to get the three but let's even try to get more than the three points so we can really fix the orbit path where you are. We don't know where you are exactly and figure out because you're you know where you are but we don't know where you are, where is it to the moon. So we're going to fix this up. So he goes around and he looks at that. We look together at a bunch of creators, and you look at it and you will say, look at that doublet. There are two creators right next to each other. I said great. Let's call it the doublet because we're going to remember that because your point the landmark one is right after the doublet or between the places where these two two creators meet so that the doublet is for point one. And then you will move next to the set. Look at that bunch of creators and look at that. They look like a snowman. I write on the machine on the pictures snowman and that as far as I'm concerned this becomes the name of that feature right there snowman. Because it looked as if because he figured out that the landmark to is actually on the tip of the head of the snowman. That's it. So he knows it. So before he gets to that point where he would say Mark, he actually sees the snowman structure or features and then he will go to the head and say Mark, then we know exactly where his line is, meaning that I did not topology. I did not talk about whatever. And I only wanted to have him figure out where he was and make him feel that he's doing a great deal of good, because if he figures out three points exactly, then we know the orbit exactly so he will always try to find out five points so that rather than three, so he would be better than the last guy that flew over this land. It's okay. Again to compete. I was actually 28. I was 29 when Apollo 11 landed. Okay, I was 28. I was just began to 28 when I joined NASA a year and a half before Apollo 11 landed. And I had never really taken a single course in astronomy. I have never seen the pictures of the moon or interpretations of what the moon is like or whatever. There was no news to me. So it was all of it was something new to me. And then right after the Apollo program ended. NASA began a program called Apollo so use mission, whereby a bunch of astronauts from this, the United States of America will join a bunch of astronauts from the Soviet Union, and the two of them would link in space, Apollo and the so use, and we'll actually orbit around the earth and then take pictures of the earth and come down as a indication of the fact that the two powers are going to cooperate in space. So, and NASA guys coming up to say that we are going to have this mission, and we want the astronauts to take pictures of the earth. So the astronauts to take pictures of the moon, you are going to give you this much and we have $250,000 for the job, come and we'll give it to you and you get a group and people and make that an experiment and teach this cruise to take pictures of the earth. I accepted and they became responsible for the photography and observations from the earth orbit of the earth from from space. And this is when I began to look at the earth from the perspective of space. I began to myself to look at the, what how I did it, I brought in experts and the guys that have been studying forks and cracks, guys that have been looking at the mountain ranges, people that are looking at the oceans and ocean currents, people that are looking, you name it, everything about the earth, I collected the best possible scientists in the US to brief the astronauts on what they knew in my presence. So that I will learn to, and I will pick up the best, the most important things to do it. And they also brought in people that talked about the desert sometimes because the orbit of the of the Apollo's mission was going to be close to the equator so it will cover nearly all of the deserts of the world. So I thought there will be a great deal of figuring out about the deserts of the world. And this is when I actually began to think about trying to do something good enough for Egypt. And I began to look at the potential of how do the, how, how do we know, what do we know about the desert. So I found out that we really, geologically, we don't know about the desert that much. And they began myself then to figure out and to have questions, simple questions for the geologists. Where did the sand come from? What is the mother of the sand? Where was the sand born? What is the difference between the white sands and the yellow sands and the red sands? Are there chemical, composite variations? And why? All of these kinds of things. And so I actually, to begin to ask these questions, I found out that most of the features of the earth are well studied and well organized and the people that I brought to study the mountain ranges and the forests and the tectonics and all of that were quite knowledge. And they really did know what is what. Except the people that I brought into talks with astronauts about deserts and so on. And I realized that in geology, as far as I am concerned, we really knew very little about the desert. And this is when I started that I went immediately to my alma mater entrance university to one of my professors and one of my college mates, and I started a research program to study the desert of Egypt. I said the western desert of Egypt because it's vast and bigger than anything else and we can tell us about North Africa. And so between 1974 and 1976, we had something like four to six trips a year to go to the desert to do this and that. The first thing that we did was figure out from the Apollo service pictures that denial had another delta altogether the delta of today is very different from the delta that used to be. That is was a delta southwest of the existing delta and then figuring out where the sand lines come in and where the sand begins and where does it end and how the sand moves and how does the sand change. From whiter to yellow to red, as far as it moves away from the source, meaning closer to the source it's lighter in color, much further away from the source it gets red. All kinds of things that we really never had any any inkling of the water before, which means that we had very little to know about the desert and the satellite images are telling us a great deal about it, which was something new. And then they continue to study the desert using satellite images. First of all, I love me to express my gratitude to our happiness to be in the same interview with our famous Egyptian science professor for open best. Well, as for my research, specifically, it is about conducting advanced technology to archaeology and heritage research. My objective is a case study first of all is about Alexandria over ages. So I am to get investigate Alexandria from archaeological layers to the historical cities. Okay. And basically, I need to investigate or I am to investigate Alexandria using a remote and GIS. First of all, to identify the outline of Alexandria, specifically using advanced technology and based on or using the first of all, using the old maps, which did back to maybe the first map of Alexandria back to 15th century. While the last survey has been found in Alexandria in 1945, but recently we have announced the time of remote sensing to identify the contemporary Alexandria. Basically, a remote sensing and GIS in my research would be useful to identify all of that. And basically, as you know, probably from Michael Alexander is so proud of the old Alexandria, which I need. Very crowded and still inhabited. So difficult for archaeologists to investigate any archaeological features there without using advanced technology. So, second phase of my research, I will execute a field trip to Alexandria, maybe after my team would be finished. I will be dropped to Alexandria to execute that using geovacical application, basically GBR and electromagnetic maybe after that. Kyoto is the capital of Japan over 10 centuries, I mean 1000 years as a capital of Japan. And also Kyoto has around 17 World Heritage sites, so that they have a very brilliant model for site management using advanced technology, mainly GIS and remote sensing, which I'm here to learn and promote my research in that field. On the other hand, it's my university, which I have attached to it, over all facilities such as advanced tools, advanced means of research that allow the site images and other software to be written to my reader. While for Alexandria, or for Alexandria, the case of Alexandria, I'm here in Kyoto just to ensure or to be sure of we can achieve something in Alexandria. Because as you know probably Japan has a limited land regard, so it's so difficult to move out from historical sites or archaeological sites to reserve it. So they have a different concept of an Egyptian one, but I'm here to study or to understand how they deal with this very complicated relationship between authenticity and demodernization. There is a big conflict between developers and reservation of historical or archaeological sites. So that's what I'm trying to understand, because that's very important to get such this great opportunity. If Dr. Erbaz allowed me, I won't ask him what is the recommendation and what is the other applications or technologies could be enhanced or improve my research in this field, which is basically it's to enhance the life of people, what we need in the outline of preserving our heritage, but with some sort of community engagement in this process. So what kind of recommendation according to that objective would be advised? Very good. You're looking at a port city that had when had gone through all kinds of changes through time. And to understand these changes through a very long time, you have to figure out how to understand the changes in lesser amounts of time. And I would suggest that you can take the region of Alexandria and get satellite images from of today and as far back as the 70s, the late 70s or early 80s of the same period. And look at it every 10 years or so in detail. So to see what happened between 1980 and 1990 in detail. And then between 1990 and 2000 and 2010 and so because these images taken by Landsat are all available and for free for everybody through the internet. You can take these pictures and figure out if you can do it every five years if you want to do in detail and figure out what the changes were exactly in that period of time, maybe during the last 50 years when we began to take pictures until today. And then you can if you if you figure out exactly what what did happen in these changes, then go to the sites where you see where most of the changes happen and examine what is it that you see today on the surface, and then perhaps use JPR the ground for the reading without to see how far are the changes that the how how maybe how much sickness was the change that happened, the addition of human activities were like that and here versus in there near the port away from the port near the exhibit areas near the temples or away from the temples where people live not where people so we can begin to figure out exactly what the changes were how vast the changes in the very different areas of the city, meaning that all of the various parts of the city changed differently and you begin to figure out why the change happened in this versus that and and and begin to understand the people themselves of that time. And in their in their immediate environment. Okay, thank you so much. The Alexandria culture changed drastically. Of course, it was at the very beginning it was the Greek city and then some with time people moved into the Greek city and change the style a little bit and then came the Armenians and then the Egyptian Jews moved more in Alexandria and then the Italians came in and the search and search so there were all kinds of very varied cultures that affected the whole region and the Egyptians that lived there became part of that salad of cultures. Today's Alexandria is completely Egyptian. And as I understand it now it is completely taken by the Muslim Brotherhood kind of, and the people there are very different from the people that used to remain Alexandria. And the, their attitudes are vastly different they do not understand science they do not understand the modernity they do not. It's going to be a very difficult kind of thing. All he has to do is make sure that he smiles and he explains what he's doing to as many of the people that come in so that they begin to smile themselves and leave him alone. The objective is to take the ground penetrating radar and do the measurements and stop without being stopped. And you can do that only if these people allow you and you cannot get them to allow you and this you make them feel okay and you can feel them okay by explaining to them what you do because underneath this thing and I'm not looking for gold. I'm not here to pick up to such and such. We are looking here to see what the street was here before how far the street, how thick is this cement between underneath this pavement or whatever. Okay, and they leave you. So it really is a matter of how do you talk to the local people, smile and and explain to them as much as you possibly can. And they will leave you alone because they really are not interested because they are not interested in knowledge or whatever so just make them feel good about it in a simple way, and keep going. That's a good point that you make. Except for the fact that you have to approach it in terms of what they are actually able to understand. Okay, so we talked to them, not about the things that you're going to get or the model. Get that word model. How many people in Egypt even college graduates would understand what a model is. So that you have to be very careful on what is it that people figure out what is it that you're talking to them about. And you cannot say that I'm going to work on a model and then figure out what is what is acceptable to them or what is not. I mean they don't know what acceptable or what do you mean by acceptable or what do you mean by the government doing this approach or what is that they are not with it as far as these kinds of things are concerned, and you talk to them at the level of what they understand only and they will understand street talk. What is it that they need to eat or what is it that comes with the food and that's it. So, speaking with them with with any technical language is not proper and trying to make them understand what is it you do are doing from the scientific point of view is not for trying to make them understand it in terms of what is it that might affect them. Yes, because your work taking this machine that's all the ground penetrating radar that have to tell them what it is, and you can actually tell them the GPS, and they will take the GPS rather than the ground penetrating radar and tell them I have this GPS, which is like a machine like doctors kind of thing, and it's measured the thickness and to the to the pavement, the way it was, sometimes before this new pavement was put in. Yeah, you get that. Because this is something that you know that before this payment there was another payment and you want to see the thickness of that between the two payments. In the meantime, what is it that's for him so you can tell him that you can do like this, so that they could, when you go over here with your bike, it's you know that it's safe to go to this way, so that the pavement is supported by another pavement out there or not. So we might go to other areas and find out this is not meaning that try to get him to understand in whatever you're doing in his or her terms of the kinds of words that they understand. And that's the only way to get to the real people that when you go to Michael was saying something about my going to the desert to see what what where the groundwater might be. Take the pictures with you. Yes, because they would be interested in talking and you tell him picture taken from above like a plane like this a plane can take this picture. And even the picture from spaces farther up the plane that flies farther up, and they say okay, and this is what it is so you're shown first the location of his town. And there is the road that talks to such and such and for when we look at this here we see this here that is different from that because it's different. We know that the water used to be there because it looks different. And then we look at such and such and we figure out where did this water go because there is a water today, where did it go, it seeped into the rock. That's all right. Then we can figure out that if we go to this area and sink the well in here then we'll find water as they all say yeah. So there really there is a way to connect with local people everywhere in the world, even in the U.S. same thing by getting them to pick up on things that they themselves know or they understand or they have done something like it. And that becomes a connection becomes the link that connects you to them. The benefit to them because with NASA it was the benefit to us or not he will do better than the other guys. Yes. And as Mohammed said it's for the locals there so what is the benefit of finding this are people are going to come here and you'll find better jobs and maybe they can build the hotel here and they'll come to so that there is got to be a benefit to the locals or else to the hell with you. Why do you come here and mingle in our territory our piece of land, and you come here and tell me don't, don't, don't, don't raise crops in this segment, because it's archeologically important on who in that word. So I will suffer so that you can get here and so it's some benefit to the person themselves. And you have to be clever enough to figure out exactly what kind of benefits. It could be something that is that is not money wise or it can be emotional it can be anything but you just have to figure out exactly how to present what you're doing to them so that there will be. Yes, the benefit to you benefit to knowledge penetrates the country and it's history, but benefit to you, the owner. Actually, one of one of the expertise that I have gained from working from at the Minister of Antiquities over more than 15 years that is how to deal with people. Day by day, we have problems when I was an inspector of archeology at the Minister of Antiquities. Day by day, we get problems with people, but actually I didn't like the way that I should deal with them. Because according to the violation and the law I have to be a sort of officer or something like that to running after them and to, but actually I don't find this the perfect way to deal with immunity, who are already in or within the outline of a circle so that I was trying and I think I get achieved a little bit in these fields to convince people to get sort of of course within my limited political area to convince people that this is your heritage. It doesn't belong to the government. Government just here for reservation to reserve your identity, but there is a mislink between reservation approach, traditional reservation approach and benefits that could be achieved for people. So that I believe if I want to succeed in my project is to get this mislink which I have explained how to convince people that we are here to enhance your life and I think that could be achieved unless we offer something to enhance their life, especially now probably and Professor Bass as well. No, you know, we, the circle or circle urban public whether in Alexander, Cairo, everywhere in Egypt, exposed to a rush urban pinch, but very really very ugly and just in to get benefits only, to get money only, but regardless any historical consideration, any, even any architectural dimensions, environmental consideration, etc. With that, we need to now to work steadily to preserve what has left from our heritage. Heritage, let me explain something. Also, we need to convince people that heritage or archaeology, according to the classic theory, archaeology, it's not gold, it's not mammoths, it's not a semi-carriage of graves, heritage and archaeology or archaeology as a part of our heritage would be achieved from benefit or offer some benefits for their life or the community. So we need to change, in my opinion, we need to change first of all this mislink or misunderstanding or the classical perception of archaeology and heritage to be considered the benefit of community. We shouldn't deal with them as any, because after that we leave, we cannot follow up them over 24 hours per day. So that we need to engage them in this process if you wanted to succeed by achieving some conical benefits, maybe, or micro-scales such as training for traditional handcrafts or thoughts of. But I think this goal will not be achieved unless we get supported from local governments or other stakeholders on the scale of governmental authorities such as Alexandria Governorate, National Organization of Urban Harmony, Ministry of Antiquities, etc. And also basically businessman of Alexandria. Good luck Mohammed, you're doing a good job. Thank you. Thank you Dr. El-Baz for sharing your time and knowledge with us today. We would love to have you back to explore more of your impressive experience. Thank you Dr. Solomon for staying late to speak with us. We are looking forward to continuing our discussion about your project.