History Before Video: Is Seeing Believing?

“The elements of historical discipline cannot be learned, for every man is endowed with them” – Theodor Mommsen

PRIMARY SOURCES: STORIES FROM A FIREPLACE

Like many people, one of my fondest memories growing up was visting my grandparents. They lived in a modest home located off the main road on the edge of the woods in Southern Arkansas. We often visited them in the fall or winter, usually around Thanksgiving or Christmas. My grandfather, whom we lovingly called “Pappa Bruce,” enjoyed cutting and stacking firewood.  When the weather got cold enough he would make the most delightful and inviting fires in the fire place.

It was in front of one of those great crackling fires I first heard stories of when he was in “The War.” I remember him telling me how cold his hands were as a drove his “Higgins Boat” (or LCM-3) across the English Channel. The LCM-3 was a boat designed to carry men & equipment, to the German machine-gun riddled beaches of Normandy, France. I was not yet 12 years old, and when he told me that he took part of the landings of D-Day on June 6th, 1944, and it didn’t fully register in my mind. I knew only a fraction about WW2, and surely didn’t understand the historical significance of D-Day. I had no idea that it was the largest amphibious landing of a military force in all of human history. Nor did I know that the Allied landings in Normandy were the beginning of the end of Hitler’s domination in Europe.

My “Pappa Bruce” was a first-hand EYEWITNESS to history’s greatest amphibious military landing. He passed away over two decades ago, and when he passed, my grandmother gave me a book he owned during the war called the Navy Bluejacket’s Manual (1941). In the book my grandfather had inscribed brief handwritten notes scattered on variuous pages, as if he knew of the momentous importance of what he was taking part in. Of particular interest was the following inscription which was written on a diagram in the book for the firing mechanism of a .50 caliber machine gun. Here are the exact words of his entry:

“June 5, 2 A.M. till June 6, 6:33 A.M. 28 of the most miserable hours I ever spent. We made the trip from Portland England to France Beach in our 50’ Barges. Sea was rough as could be. Wet & Cold Entire Trip. 1944” (see picture below)

Several years later, as I was preparing lecture notes for an undergraduate course on Biblical Archaeology, and pondering how to teach the basic elements of historiography I remembered my grandfather, his stories, the Navy Bluejackets Manual, WW2, and the importance of primary sources in reconstructing history.

In my own life I had access to all of the basic elements, or the primary sources of my grandfather’s past (i.e. his history) in connection to D-Day. To some academics, archaeologists, and techical historians, this may seem like an oversimplification, but the basic components of historical primary sources were, and still are:

(1) EYEWITNESSES

(2) HISTORICAL RECORDS (manuscripts [MSS], inscriptions, etc…)

(3) ARCHAEOLOGICAL REMAINS.

The great German historian of ancient Rome, Theodor Mommsen was right; “The elements of the historical discipline can’t be learned, for every man is endowed with them.”

My grandfather was the EYEWITNESS of history. His Navy Bluejackets Manual was the HISTORICAL RECORD, and if I wanted to, I could take a trip to Normandy and visit the ruins of the reinforced machine gun positions of the German defenses (ARCHAEOLOGICAL REMAINS) along the Normandy coastline – as well as visit the cemeteries containing the remains of thousands of Allied soldiers. Scholars may debate, squabble and dialogue over the relative value and interpretation of these sources, but most would agree that these are the basic components for reconstructing history.

Since the 19th Century another component of history and our knowledge of the past arrived on the scene, a new technology: the camera (photography & film).

The questions I would like to consider in this article is: Is Seeing Believing? How do IMAGES, whether they are photographic images or video, affect how we understand history as well as faith? Can images be a primary source for history? 

REMEMBERING THE PAST IN WORD AND IMAGE

The invention of photography & video changed many things in our culture – new technologies always do. Neil Postman has been on record several times stating that new technologies always involve a sort of Faustian bargain with the cultures who use them. He states that, “New technoogies give us something that we didn’t have before, but they also take something away from us.” Perhaps this is what Marhsall McLuhan means when he wrote, “Societies have always been shaped more by the nature of the media by which men communicate than the content of the communication” [1].

New technologies have also had a great impact on history and how we remember the past. Just consider writing which was invented in Mesopotamia, at Sumer. Ancient Sumerians no longer had to recall or remember (in their minds) important information such as legal agreements, agricultural records, etc… they recorded the information by pressing the tip of a wedge shaped styluses into soft clay (hence the “cuneifom” writing, which literally means wedge shaped writing), so that there could be a more permanent record of the things they wanted to remember. The new tehcnology of writing did help ancient people to remember things, but it also degraded their memorization skills.

In Chapter1 of his book, Technopoly, Postman includes a very insightful quote by Socrates in Plato’s Pheadrus. In the dialogue Socrates relays the story of an Egyptian king named Thamus who once entertained the god Theuth. Theuth was the inventor of many things, inlcuding writing. When he told the king about his invention of writing Theuth was rather proud, yet the pharoah had this to say about it:

Those who aquire it will cease to exercise their memory and become forgetful; they will rely on writing to bring things to mind by external signs instead of by their own resources. What you have discovered is a receipt for recollection, not for memory. And as for wisdom, your pupils will have the reputation for it without the reality: they will quantify information without instruction, and in consequence be thought very knowledgeable when they are for the most part quite ignorant [2].

Writing, whether on clay, typewriters, computers, tablets, or notebooks, is not inherently a bad thing in and of itself, but it is also not the same thing as utilizing memory. Ironically, in our age of computers & smart phones with their myriad of apps to help us remember things and organize our lives – our memories are actually getting worse, and our lives are becoming more and more overwhelmed.

The same effects might also be said of the photographic image – whether, film, digital, or video images.

We are mostly unaware of the effects that images have upon us because most people (especially Millennials) today can’t remember a time without photographs, or certainly without video (TV, film, movies, etc…) – not to mention the computer and internet. Evidence of how connected we are to images can be seen in the dramatic prolifieration of high definition (HD) cameras & video on mobile phones today. Go to to nearly any public place today anywhere around the world, and you will witness people taking pictures or videos of nearly everything (food, others, themelves, landscape, objects, sporting events, etc… etc… ad infinitum…)

As early as 1929, Russian film theorist and filmaker, Dziga Vertov wrote these remarkably prophetic words about the camera (as if the camera itself were speaking to us):

I am an eye. A mechanical eye. I, the machine, show you a world the way only the way I can see it. I free my self to day and forever from human immobility. I’m in constant movement. I approach and pull away from objects. I creep under them. I move alongside a running horse’s mouth. I fall and rise with the falling of bodies. This is I, the machine, manoeuvring in the chaotic movements recording one movement after another in the most complex combinations

Freed from the boundaries of time and space, I co-ordinate any and all points of the universe, wherever I want them to be. My ways leads towards the creation of a fresh perception of the world. Thus, I explain in a new way the world unknown to you [3].

Vertov could not be more accurate in his predictions. I was born in June 1969, and was barely a month old when Neil Armstrong, Michael Collins and, “Buzz” Aldrin made their historic moon landing. The momentous and extraordinary event was televised around the world via satellite to millions of people who heard Armstrong say those unforgettable words: “That’s one small step for man – and one giant leap for mankind.”

Strangely enough, there are moon landing deniers, despite hours of video images, audio, eyewitness testimony, as well as tons of samples of moon dust and rocks and other scientific data. The recent generation saw the horrendous events of 9/11 unfold as it happened live on the morning talk shows, and yet there are also conspiracy theorists about 9/11, claiming that it was all staged to happen for some type of political gain, but more to the point. When most people older than 20 years old think of the events of 9/11/2001, there is usually an IMAGE in their minds (usually an picture of the World Trade Center on fire or a memory of the video footage of one of the planes as it hit the building).

The World War II generation also have iconic images connected to their memories of the historic events they lived through. One can imagine that if the subject of Iwo Jima were brought up to veterans who fought in the Pacific theater during WWII, they would likely have the image of a group of Marines from the 28th Marine Division as they raised the American flag on Mt. Suribachi (a small patch of volcanic island in the Pacific). The moment was captured by the camera of Joe Rosenthal. Rosenthal’s image went on to win the Pulitzer Prize. The photograph, “Raising the Flag on Iwo Jima” now serves as a reminder to that entire generation of the terrible cost and the high price that was paid for victory during World War II.

Af first glance, it would seem that in our current era of images and videos, there would be no questions or doubts about events that have happened in the past (or, at least the proximate past), yet we now find ourselves in a time of great skepticism with “fake news” and “click bait” to internet sites replete with provocative images, videos, and poorly researched or outright false information. In his book, Amusing Ourselves to Death [written in 1985], Postman wrote these prophetic words:

We were keeping our eye on 1984. When the year came and the prophecy didn’t, thoughtful Americans sang softly in praise of themsleves. The roots of liberal democracy had held. Wherever else the terror had happened, we, at least, had not been visited by Orwellian nightmares. But we had forgotten that alongside Orwell’s dark vision, there was another, slightly older, slightly less known, equally chilling: Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World. …[George] Orwell feared those who would deprive us of information. Huxley feared those who would give us so much that we would be reduced to passivity and egoism. Orwell feared that the truth would be concealed to us. Huxley feared the truth would be drowned in a sea of irrelevance [4].

With so much information that bombards our eyes and senses today one can see the truth of Huxley’s fears – especially as it relates to history. Many see history as either irrelevant, or as a form of entertainment as can be seen in some of the shows which appear on “The History Channel.” History’s correspondence to reality is not necessarily high on the priority list of their producers, but entertainment value is. We are truly living in a strange time. On one hand there is a complete lack of discernment and critical thinking, and on the other hand there is also a radically skeptical view of knowlege, whether it comes from news stories, science or history. Videos and images do not necessarily ensure historical reliability or knowledge. However, this is not to say that images cannot be a valuable record of historical information, but more on that in a moment.

THE VISUAL RECORD: A BRIEF HISTORY OF IMAGING THE PAST

In 1972 the British art critic, John Berger made the following incisive observation:

Seeing comes before words. The child looks and recognizes before it can speak. But there is also another sense in which seeing comes before words. It is seeing which establishes our place in the surrounding world; we explain that world with words, but words can never undo the fact that we are surrounded by it. The relation between what we see and what we know is never settled. Each evening we see the sun set. We know that the earth is turing away from it. Yet the knowledge, the explanation, never quite fits the sight. …The way we see things is affected by what we know or what we believe [5].

We might say something similar of history. We are taught by our teachers and we learn in books that a particular event happened in the past, but how exactly do we know it? We were not there. We didn’t see it or have any images of it. Yet most people today believe that the Titanic sank in 1912, or that Napoleon Bonaparte was defeated at the battle of Waterloo in 1815, but again we don’t have photographs or video of those events. To many in our visually based generation, if there’s no video or images, then it’s almost as if it didn’t happen. We want to SEE it with our own eyes.

History Before Photography

One of the very first places where the image was deliberately used as an historical record (in a scientific sense) was Napoleon’s campaign in Egypt in 1789. When he arrived in Egypt, Napoleon brought along not only his la Grande Armee, but also 167 technical, historical and artistic advisors known as the Commission of the Sciences and Arts (Commission des Sciences et des Arts). Napoleon considered himself a child of the Enlightenment, and actually had the foresight to bring France’s best and brightest artists, scholars and other learned men (savants, as they were called) to study and record all aspects of ancient and modern Egypt. Napoleon, of course, was eventually defeated in the Battle of Waterloo in 1815, but one of his most lasting legacies was the discovery of the Rosetta Stone, and a monumental publication called The Description of Egypt (or Description de le Égypt).

The Description de le Égypt was based on thousands of hours of fieldwork made by the scholars and artists whom Napoleon brought with him to Egypt. It eventually became a collaborative project and included the work of well over 2000 artists, inlcuding engravers, technicians, painters, etc… The work was originally published in 23 volumes over a period of about 20 years, between 1809 and 1829.

The Description of Egypt is a magnificent and wide ranging work aimed at capturing all aspects of Egyptian life, culture and history, inlcluding it’s natural history. The influence of the work on subsequent Egyptologists and Egyptology is difficult to fully ascertain, but it certainly had a signifcant impact. Ironically, as amazing as all of the images, engravings, and paintings were in the Descripton de le Égypt, most scholars had no idea what the strange markings of hieroglyhics meant. Champollion didn’t announce his decipherment of the Rosetta Stone until 1822, and it would be years later that he would employ that knowledge to artifacts in the field. In this instance, images of the past were not enough to give the full picture of Egyptian history. The pictures and engravings were beautiful and intriguing to look at, but not much else could be learned about ancient Egypt. Scholars competent in the reading of hieroglyphics were crucial to fully unlock the history of that amazing ancient culture.

The Academic School of Painting

There were other artists and painters who had an interest in preserving the history in paintings who came from a school of art called the Academic School. The Academic School came under the influence of the European academies of art which dated back to the time of the Italian Renaissance. In this  school, artists were concerned with recording the past as it was, albeit often with a romanticized notion of it. Those interested in preserving the past in this school would also fall under two sub-branches known as historicism and orientalism. Two artists of note from that period are, Jean Léon-Gérôme and David Roberts. Gérôme was French and Roberts, British.

Jean-Leon Gérôme was a very talented and technical French painter who was interested in themes from Greek and Roman history and mythology. One of his most famous paintings was a scene that would have likely happened in the Roman Colesium, and he based it on a historical understanding of Roman history. It was painted in 1872 and reveals a scene in which a gladiator awaits thumbs up or thumbs down from the audience on whether or not he should finish his opponent. The title of the painting is Pollice Verso (Latin for “with a turned thumb”).

 

Artist David Roberts was originally from Scotland and was a well known painter and orientalist. In 1841 he was elected to the Royal Academy. Earlier in 1838 he traveled in Nubia, Egypt, Sinai, Israel and Jordan, where he drew, sketched and painted hundreds of archaeological sites before scientific archaeology came on the scene. When he returned to Britain he worked with a skilled lithographer to produce his work, Sketches of the Holy Land and Syria, and also Egypt and Nubia. Near Eastern scholars, archaeologists, and historians have seen great value in Robert’s paintings because they showed many archaeological and historical sites in Egypt, Jordan and Israel before they were excavated, and as they appeared in the early 19th Century.

One other artist who was heavily influenced by the academic school was also one of the most well known archaeologists in Egyptology – Howard Carter. Carter is most well known for his discovery of King Tut’s tomb in the Valley of the Kings in 1924. But, before he became fully involved in the search for Tut, Carter was a very talented artist and draftsman who worked with Edouard Naville of the Egypt Exploration Fund from 1893-1898. Carter was one of several artists who sketched, painted and recorded six volumes of reliefs and texts from the Temple of Hatshepsut at Deir el-Bahari at Thebes. Carter was such a talented artist that he did not trace but worked mainly freehand. Interestingly, Carter’s drawrings and paintings are considered to be “…some of the greatest epigraphic contributions to the science of Egyptology.”

History in Photographs

In 1826 a French scientist named Joseph Nicéphore Niépce took the world’s first photograph. He exposed a chemically treated metal plate in his camera obscura for several hours, set it on his windowsill and waited for the results. After enough time had passed Niépce took the plate out and gazed upon the first photograph ever taken. It was titled, View from the Window at Le Gras, the place where his family’s country home was located.

In 1912 history was made once again in at least two respects. Hiram Bingham, an archaeologist from Yale University was searching for the lost Incan capital of Vilcabamba when he stumbled upon the lost city of Macchu Picchu high in the Peruvian Andes. The ancient site was one of the most remarkable archaeological discoveries ever found. As it turned out, Bingham had a photographer from a fairly new organization called, National Geographic and the city of Macchu Picchu was the first archaeological site to be photographed and published to the world [6].

Since it’s inception, photography would play a key role for archaeologists and other scholars working in the Ancient Near East. Emily Teeter confirms that:

Photography has played an important role both in documenting the past and building an audience for those images. The first photographic method was patented in 1839 by Louis J.-M. Dauguerre. The technique was applied to the documentation of the ancient Middle East that same year when Francois Arago suggested that it be used to record hieroglyphic inscriptions, continuing the world of the Napoleonic expedition. He proposed: ‘To copy the millions of hieroglyphics which over even the exterior of the great monuments of Thebes, Memphis, Karnak, and others would require decades of time and legions of draftsmen…’[7].

Since the earliest days, photography has continued to be used extensively in the Ancient Near East and eventually in archaeological contexts around the world. The use of archaeological imaging is now utilized with by aerial drones, satellite imagery and aerial photography providing amazing new perspectives on ancient sites, as well has helping scholars discover new sites, previously unknown. In politically volatile regions such as Iraq and Syria, photographic records of ancient sites are now invaluable sources for sites such as Palmyra and Nineveh which have partially been destroyed by ISIS terrorists.

Perhaps one of the greatest benefits of photography as it relates to archaeology, is that it is able to record information (data) that would normally be lost in the process of excavation. Archaeology is a destructive process. In other words, because artifacts are removed from their archaeological contexts, photographic images can provide a vitally important record of a site as it is being excavated. Photographic images of artifacts in situ (in place), can help provide some context years after an excavation season is complete. Such is the case with the University of Chicago’s Oriental Institute in the last decade, as well as today. John A. Larson writes:

Photography is a means of recording a moment in time. Archaeology is inherently a destructive process, and photography provides us with an opportunity to collect and store data in a more-or-less permanent way. During the period from 1919 to 1940, Oriental Institute archaeological field expeditions and projects used documentary photography as one of the principle methods for recording the setting of each expediton, the progress of fieldwork, and the discoveries that were made. In the era from 1946 to the present, photography has been joined by a whole array of techniques for recording archaeological data [8].

Space Archaeology: Imaging the Past via Satellite Imagery

The most recent advancement in the use of photography and imaging in archaeology is a project called, GlobalXplorer which launched in 2016. GlobalXplorer was the idea of Egyptologist Sara Parcak. Parcak utilizes high definition (HD) satellite imagery, alongside computer algorithims to locate previously unknown archaeological sites. Utilizing her methods, she has helped locate 17 potential pyramids in Egypt, 3,100 fogotten settlements and 1,000 lost tombs. Her goal in GlobalXplorer is to utilize crowdsourcing, enlisting anyone with the internet to help discover previously uknown archaeological sites. Parcak was able to build and launch GlobalXplorer by winning the 2016 TED Prize. Having just launched last year, it will surely be exciting to learn of more remarkable discoveries made by Parcak and the GlobalXplorer platform.

Photographic and video imaging will surely continue to play a crucial role in historical studies and archaeology well into the twenty-first century. Through new and updated imaging technologies archaeologists will continue to add additional valuable information and data to our knowledge of the past.

 

EVALUATING OUR PRIMARY SOURCES WITH WISDOM

One thing we should keep in mind  as we consider the role of videos and imaging in relation to history and to our knowledge of the past, and that is the crucial difference between information [data], and it’s proper use [discernment]. Or, to put it another way, there is a huge difference between knowledge and wisdom. We are overloaded with information, and it is difficult to process it all. We pride ourselves, and congratulate ourselves on new ways of procuring information [data], but we should also give serious consideration to Neil Postman’s warning of the Faustian bargain that new technologies bring. When technologies [are] utilized, and absorbed into the culture, they become new mediums which change us, as well as how we interface with reality in fundamental ways. New technologies give us something that we didn’t have before, but they also take something from us.

Has imaging changed how we see the past? Is history better preserved in our minds, or in images? These questions are difficult to fully answer here.

IS SEEING BELIEVING?

This entire article may, on the surface seem completely irrelevant to the Christian worldview and message, but it actually cuts right to the heart of it. Is seeing necessarily believing? After Christ had risen from the dead, He appeared to His disciples and yet some of them still doubted (Matt. 28:16-17). Seeing may not after all, be believing.

We are reminded of Thomas, the skeptical disciple who refused to believe that Jesus had risen from the dead unless he saw him with his own eyes.

Now Thomas (also known as Didymus), one of the Twelve, was not with the disciples when Jesus came. So the other disciples told him, “We have seen the Lord!” But he said to them, “Unless I see the nail marks in his hands and put my finger where the nails were, and put my hand into his side, I will not believe.”

A week later his disciples were in the house again, and Thomas was with them. Though the doors were locked, Jesus came and stood among them and said, “Peace be with you!” Then he said to Thomas, “Put your finger here; see my hands. Reach out your hand and put it into my side. Stop doubting and believe.” Thomas said to him, “My Lord and my God!” Then Jesus told him, “Because you have seen me, you have believed; blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.” – (John 20:24-29) [emphasis mine]

The core truth of Christianity is that Christ has risen from the dead. One is tempted to say that if we only had a photograph of some sort, then more people might believe. But perhaps we do. The Shroud of Turin is one of the most fascinating and mysterious artifacts/images on earth. Does it contain the image of Christ? The latest research suggest that it my indeed be genuine. We can’t be 100% positive, but this is true of most artifacts.

In the end, even if science were able to prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that the Shroud of Turin is the genuine burial cloth of the crucified and risen Christ there will still be those, like Thomas, who have doubts. In Luke 16 when Jesus told the story of the rich man and Lazarus, and after both men had died, and as the rich man was in hades and pleaded with Abraham to send Lazarus back from the dead to warn his brothers of the terrible place that he was in. Abraham’s reply is was relevant then, as it is today:

But Abraham said, ‘They have Moses and the Prophets; let them hear them.’ But the rich man said, ‘No, father Abraham, but if someone goes to them from the dead, they will repent!’ But he said to him, ‘If they do not listen to Moses and the Prophets, they will not be persuaded even if someone rises from the dead.’ – (Lk. 16:29-31)

 

FOOTNOTES

[1] Marhsall McLuhan & Quentin Fiore, The Medium is the Massage: An Inventory of Effects (San Francisco; Hardwired, 1996 Reprint), p. 8 (emphasis mine).

[2] Neil Postman, Technopoly: The Surrender of Culture to Technology (New York: Vintage,1993), p.4.

[3] Dziga Vertov. “WE. A Version of a Manifesto,” 1922, in Ian Christie, Richard Taylor Eds. The Film Factory: Russian and Soviet Cinema in Documents, 1896-1939 (London, Routledge, 1994)

[4] Neil Postman, Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business (New York: Penguin Books, 1985), xix (emphasis mine).

[5] John Berger, Ways of Seeing (London: Penguin Books, 1972), p.7 (emphasis mine)

[6] Emily Teeter, “The Oriental Institute and Early Documentation in the Nile Valley, in Jack Green, Emily Teeter and John A. Larson, Eds., Picturing the Past: Imaging and Imagining the Ancient Middle East (Chicago: Oriental Institute Publications 34, The Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago, 2012), p. 27

[7]For more see, “Milestones in Photography” at http://www.nationalgeographic.com/photography/photos/milestones-photography/ (accessed 10 Aug 2017).

[8] Emily Teeter, “Photography and Documentation of the Middle East,” in Jack Green, Emily Teeter and John A. Larson, Eds., Picturing the Past: Imaging and Imagining the Ancient Middle East (Chicago: Oriental Institute Publications 34, The Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago, 2012), p.45.

[9] John A. Larson, “The Oriental Institute Photographic Archives,” in Picturing the Past, 2012, p. 51.