Preserving Saudi Arabia’s history from the skies

JEDDAH: What happens when a group of documentary enthusiasts gather together to use their passion and expertise for good? Simple, they create a non-profit national documentary initiative that serves as a platform to document Saudi Arabia from the skies. The Kingdom, now more than ever, is opening its doors to tourists and encouraging visitors and residents to explore the fascinating country. What better way to display the beauty of Saudi Arabia than through pictures and the Erth Aerial Documentary Team are documenting Saudi Arabia in an innovative way — from an aerial viewpoint.

The team is made up of 13 members of different backgrounds. The team includes photographers, pilots, guides, historians and more and they are seeking to document various topographical and geographical areas of the Kingdom using a powered parachute aircraft and other technology.

The team members “photograph and document the heritage, geology and historical landmarks of the region of Madinah in Saudi Arabia and we are going to expand our work to include the rest of Saudi Arabia. The region of Madinah is an important part of Saudi Arabia as its full of historical and Islamic sites,” the team explains in an online post.

Saudi head of the project Abdulaziz Al-Dakheel founded Erth Team in 2014 and has led the group to document more than 10,000 aerial images in 40 different locations until now.

They document different historical civilizations in the Kingdom, mainly in the Western region, such as castles and tombs. Some are significant to Islam while others hail from the pre-Islamic period. They also document the religious and historical landmarks of the Arabian Peninsula, such as the pre-Islamic fortress town of Khaybar, the Nabatean-era ruins in Mada’in Saleh and the 2,000-year-old area of Al-Ula and work to document the natural landscapes of the Western region, including volcanoes and wells. Their mission also includes documenting the development of modern day Saudi Arabia, including the expansion of urban spaces and the soaring skylines of the country’s major cities.

“It’s not simply about taking pictures for now, this is more to do with the future generations. When they want to look back and understand how we lived and went about our daily lives, pictures and videos are their best references,” Al-Dakheel told Arab News.

“We, as a team, see that it’s our duty as passionate explorers to document and show the beauty that is our country. We don’t run it as a business, we take our time and take many rounds with our planes just to get the perfect shot. That’s the difference between what we are trying to achieve and the images available now.

“A two-seater plane is much more effective than others and with new competition — drones — we make sure we go beyond our abilities to make sure we document a given area with video and images alike, raw and untouched,”

he added., It is not as easy as opening a map and choosing a specific location in order to photograph and document it from above. A lot of research goes into investigating the area and finding the proper means of reaching it safely, especially in

difficult terrain. The team’s office is comprised of individuals who contribute to the missions by providing every detail needed. They have historians, specialists in the history of the Prophet’s life, geologists, geographers and more.

“The strength of the exploration team is based on the strength of the information we obtain from our honorary committee members. Their detailed information and deep knowledge of their fields allow us to record the intended location or landmark with meticulousness accuracy. An example would be finding the battle ground of one of the first Islamic (campaigns), Zul Al-Ushairah (623 CE), in the valley of Yanbu. From a worm’s eye view, you can’t find the battle grounds or recognize the village it took place in, but we were able to distinguish some pillar structures of the ancient village from a bird’s eye view. We recorded our findings with the Yanbu municipality and tourism agency.”

The team’s base is in Madinah, a city surrounded by hidden gems. From historical landmarks to ancient wells, the area is even home to one of Saudi Arabia’s most interesting natural features — the basalt lava fields known as “harrat.”

The natural phenomenon forms one of the largest alkali basalt regions in the world. Covering some 180,000 square km, they contain tuff rings, lava domes, lava flows, scoria cones and more.

“Harrat Raha, for example, has over 700 volcanoes. What makes volcanoes in Saudi Arabia different from others worldwide is that our region is arid and dry. Other volcanoes are covered with vegetation, the volcanoes here are untouched (so) you see them in their truest form.

The team has been, and continues to go through, a long process of trial and error in their bid to find ancient landmarks that have been lost or forgotten.

It is all worth it, however, as the images the team has captures speak a thousands words and go a long way in preserving the history of Saudi Arabia.