Mudawwara 1918-2018

We are now in the final stages of working on a little film to support a crowdfunding campaign for archaeologist John Winterburn’s Mudawwara Project.  John has been involved in the excavation of three Great Arab Revolt  redoubt sites in Jordan which overlooked the Hejaz Railway station in Medawwara during the legendary campaign to disrupt that line which involved both Bedouin and British forces in 1916-18.  Re-photography of the area that has taken place during aerial surveys, the excavations and ground surveys will be an important part of  the exhibition reflecting of changes in the cultural landscape of this part of southern Jordan over the past century. T.E. Lawrence, better known as Lawrence of Arabia was instrumental in designing the actions at Mudawarra which culminated in a raid on August 8, 1918 which destroyed the water tower critical to supplying the steam engines which were used on this line.

Everyone at Archaeoikon has played a part on putting this film together with Teri and Christina filming and working with John on voiceovers and design,  Alan and Timo  have contributed graphics and  Peter took over as lead editor in the final stages of the project.

We will make a link available both to the crowdfunding site and to the project site once these go live.

Update: Cristina Mosconi

Our collaborator Cristina Mosconi is now at the start of  a PhD program at Exeter University which will help her develop her professional interest in locative media for heritage interpretation. Her MA  work on  a phone based app for use at the Rollright Stones, a megalithic site in Oxfordshire is now being developed into a full blown interpretive aid for the site in collaboration with the Rollright Trust.

Filling the Air with Sound

When the refreshed Imperial Valley Desert Museum re-opens after installation of new permanent exhibits in June 2015, the spine tingling voices you hear coming from ceiling speakers in one area of the museum will be from an Archaeoikon production.  Teri Brewer and ethnographer Richard Carrico were recording a session with some of the distinguished Birdsingers from local Kumeyaay communities in December 2014, when they were asked to let the museum have the use of some sound files of the Kumeyaay Bird Songs that were being performed. Teri and Peter worked together to prepare the files for broadcast, collaborating with museum staff to get the sound installed for testing in April.

ABX Returns

A second Anza Borrego Expedition field trip is now in planning  for  Spring 2016.  We will be collaborating with local partners to develop a new field trip which will start from San Diego and explore lesser known byways of San Diego County and possibly northern Baja California for a week. Tentatively scheduled for March 2016,  The draft itinerary will be available on this site in mid 2015.

Basque Arborglyph film to be featured on Strata/ Portraits of Humanity

An Archaeoikon film,  Hunting the Mountain Picassos will soon be featured on the Archaeological Legacy Institute’s  monthly Internet/TV show, “Strata: Portraits of Humanity,” produced by  the Archaeological Legacy Institute.  The film, made for the Nevada Arts Council’s folklife series Nevada Stories, explores the work of Great Basin  Arborglyph collectors Jean and

http://www.archaeologychannel.org/video-guide/strat

Namibian Workshops

Peter Wilcox, (our tech support specialist and head  film editor for Archaeoikon) has just returned fro Namibia where he ran a film workshop for local students and documented the first Python conference in Namibia, using some of our latest sound equipment at the University of Namibia in Windhoek. Python is a programming language which Cardiff University and their Namibian counterpart are planing to use in a new collaboration involving  students and staff from their medical schools and other university departments. Peter’s participation was partially sponsored by the Cardiff Django Group who had witnessed experiments in programming our archaeological drone at Cardiff University last year.

Conflict Archaeology Exhibit Fundraising Pitch Film

Archaeoikon members Teri Brewer and Cristina Mosconi  are working with landscape archaeologist John Winterburn to prepare a pitch film to be used in  a crowdfunding appeal to create an exhibit based on his recent work in Jordan. The Mudawarra Project will help mount an exhibit on the archaeology of the  First World War era campaign to destroy the  Turkish controlled Hejaz Railway.  This campaign is associated with the war work of T.E. Lawrence, better known as Lawrence of Arabia.  Winterburn and Brewer had previously co authored a filmscript on the  campaign.  The crowdfunding campaign will be managed by Dig Ventures.

Basque Arborglyphs


Capturing ArborglyphsHunting the Mountain Picassos, a short film made by Teri Brewer for the Nevada Arts Council and the Nevada Historical Society was featured on “Strata: Portraits of Humanity,” a program sponsored by  the Archaeological Legacy Institute.

The film explores the lifelong passion of Jean and Phillip Earl, collectors of arborglyphs:  a tree carving tradition associated with Basque shepherds who kept summer sheep camps in the high country aspen groves of the Great Basin. The Earls invented a unique method of documenting the glyphs using muslin and the special  soft crayons more commonly associated with brass rubbings in English churches.  Another film, Capturing Arborglyphs.  made as part of the same project documents the technique of making the rubbings.

Capturing Arborglyphs:

http://www.archaeologychannel.org/video-guide/strata-portraits-of-humanity