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CIP A 2003 XIX th International Symposium, 30 September - 04 October, 2003, Antalya, Turkey
1.3 Petroglyphs and Pictographs
Around the base of the rock are approximately 80 sites
containing rock paintings or peckings. Some of these sites have
been developed for visitor access while others are restricted to
authorised men or women, and others are registered as Sacred
Sites and governed by Acts of Parliament. The Plan of
Management recommended that these sites be documented and
conserved as many are threatened by visitors, wasp nests, water
damage, dust and animal presence. A project was undertaken
in 1999 to document these sites, and a report was prepared that
included data in a format suitable for incorporation into the
Park Management’s Geographic Information System (GIS).
The report also included some multimedia material to give an
indication of the potential for contemporary information
technology’ to store and manage data like images, drawings,
maps and tables. This small addition to the report was the seed
for the development of a unique cultural heritage information
system.
1.4 The Cultural Site Management System
As a result of the initial documentation project, it was decided
to develop a computer based cultural site management system
(CSMS) capable of providing information for the day-to-day
management of the rock painting sites, and providing a safe
keeping place for the ‘intangible’ heritage of the Anangu people
(the use of‘intangible’ will be discussed later in this paper, the
term here is used only for convenience). The system can store
video, maps, forms, drawings, images, and audio in an indexed,
web-browser based information system.
The first release of the system was installed at Uluru in late
2002, and is currently being populated with data.
2. PHOTOGRAMMETR1C RECORDING PROJECT
The rock painting and pecking sites in the overhangs and on the
rocks around the base of Uluru were documented in 1999 using
a combination of photogrammetry, photography, and hand
drawing (Ogleby, 1999). All sites have UTM coordinates as a
result of a combined GPS/GLONASS survey performed at the
same time.
The photogrammetric recording undertaken on site used both a
film-based camera for the record photography and a digital
camera for the provision of survey control. This innovative
approach ensured that the maximum number of sites could be
documented in the limited time available, there being no need
to use conventional surveying equipment to coordinate the
small targets used to control the photogrammetry.
The primary record was obtained using a modified Hasselblad
500ELM camera with 50mm lens, and 100ASA colour
transparency film. The 100ASA film has small grain size,
which allows for a high level of detail to be contained in the
photographs. The film has been processed by a custom
laboratory, ensuring consistency of quality and good archival
qualities. The men’s, women’s and public sites were processed
separately, and the restrictions on gender access was maintained
by the processing laboratory. The resolution of the 100ASA
film also allows high resolution digital scans to be acquired
from the images if required.
Small plastic targets were affixed temporarily to the rock
surface away from areas of pigment and/or sensitivity so that a
network of coordinated control points could be obtained. The
targets were removed after the photography. They were
unnumbered, but are annotated on reference photographs.
Figure 2: Typical recording session showing T-bar, Hasselblad,
flash and targets on the rock surface
The method used to transfer arbitrary coordinates to the targets
uses a calibrated T-bar and multiple, convergent digital images
of the target array. These images were acquired with a Kodak
DC210 with a metric calibration, and are solely for the
provision of survey control (they have been exposed and framed
for this purpose, they do not form part of the primary record).
Coordinates are transferred from the T-bar to the targets using a
bundle adjustment photogrammetric solution via the Australis
software system developed by the Department of Geomatics
(Fraser and Edmundson, 2000).
The photographs, control images and coordinates are kept in a
fire-proof safe at the Park headquarters.
3. THE ‘INTANGIBLE’ CULTURAL HERITAGE OF
‘COUNTRY’
There have been formal developments recently regarding the
documentation of‘intangible’ cultural heritage, in particular the
preparation of the 2003 ‘Preliminary Draft Convention for the
Safeguarding of Intangible Cultural Heritage’ by UNESCO
(UNESCO 2003a). This Draft recognises the importance of
intangible heritage, and recommends methods be developed to
preserve this component of the culture of humankind.
The Intangible Heritage Unit of UNESCO’s Cultural Heritage
Division defines intangible heritage as being “... oral
traditions, customs, languages, music, dance, rituals, festivities,
traditional medicine and pharmacopoeia, the culinary arts and
all kinds of special skills connected with the material aspects of
culture, such as tools and the habitat’ (UNESCO 2003b). The
role of the division is perhaps best summed up by the phrase ...
a link between the safeguarding of the tangible and
preservation of the intangible heritage (ibid), which is also an
apt description of the aims of the project discussed in this paper.
However this separation of tangible and intangible cultural
heritage is not appropriate at Uluru (and many other places for
that matter), heritage is a connected whole where the visible
signs of ‘culture’ (say the rock paintings) are merely one
manifestation of the life and beliefs of the people, and an
integral part of tjukurpa. There are songs, dances, stories and
behaviours that form part of the Uluru story. The separation of
song and dance from the rock paintings and the fauna is
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