InFocus - Professor Richard Bates

Professor Richard Bates, from the School of Earth and Environmental Sciences, on discovering a hidden tomb at Petra, Jordan, and his love for geophysics and archaeology alike. 

“You’re covered in sweat, the flies are all around you […] your eyes are encrusted with all of the sand and everything else but hey, you’re surveying in Petra. It’s just part of the job,” said Professor Richard Bates. 

Budding geophysicist, Professor Richard Bates, who has worked at the University of St Andrews for more than 25 years, was a part of the team that discovered a tomb beneath the Treasury Building at the World Heritage Site of Petra, Jordan. The tomb contained the remains of twelve ancient skeletons, which, as Professor Bates himself describes, is “extremely rare” and “could be a step forward in learning more about the practice of [the Nabataeans] back then.” 

In an interview, Professor Richard Bates shared that this opportunity to go to Petra arose when the Executive Director of the American Center of Research (ACOR), Professor Pearce Paul Creasman, first called him out to Sudan a couple of years ago for a project to help find a pyramid that had gone missing along the River Nile. Whilst away on this work trip, they discussed a Roman site at the Dead Sea that also needed work.  Subsequently, Professor Bates and his brother went out to the Dead Sea last year and were called to Petra last October. 

With the drastic impacts that climate change has on archaeology, Professor Bates researched the impact that storm activity has on the valleys of Petra, hoping the results would help to develop better methods for water management in the foreseeable future. The project was a collaboration between the University of St Andrews, ACOR, the Jordanian Department of Antiquities (DoA), Petra Development and Tourism Region Authority (PDTRA), and the Discovery Channel. 

Project Co-Director at ACOR, Matthew Vincent, and Professor Bates took their chances to ask for permission to enter the Treasury — a site that is usually prohibited — for surveying purposes. They unexpectedly received the green light to proceed with a remote sensing scan of the area, which brought up anomalous results earlier this past spring. These results initiated the development of an excavation plan that was carried out in late July, leading to the ground-breaking discovery of one of the new seven wonders of the world. The discovery features in Expedition Unknown on the Discovery Channel with Josh Gates.

Professor Bates described that a typical day of surveying involved setting out very early in the morning with geophysics instruments, which are usually single-person operated, and walking up and down lines for many hours to record what was happening underground. He would then spend three to four hours each evening downloading, checking, and uploading all of the data and charging all the equipment “and usually at ten or eleven o’clock at night, you’ve had enough wine to call it quits and then to get back up at six o’clock to do it all again.” When asked if this routine was intense, he said, “It is, but it is a lot of fun. I wouldn’t do it if it wasn’t fun. Don’t do anything in life that isn’t fun.” 

Despite describing the most difficult part of the project — getting the instruments across the border — Professor Bates spoke fondly of his time in Jordan, both of the people and beauty of the country. Having previously worked in many other countries across the Middle East including Iran, Iraq, and Qatar, Professor Bates emphasised the particular enjoyment of his time spent in Jordan, describing it as “stunning in terms of its archaeology.” He added: “It’s such a great country to work in […] the people are open, very relaxed, enthusiastic. It’s just a pleasure, an absolute pleasure.” 

Professor Bates’s passion for geophysics can be traced back to his undergraduate studies in Geology which he completed at the University of Edinburgh. Upon graduating, he pursued a PhD at Bangor University that combined the disciplines of geology, geophysics, and engineering, noting that he only decided to do a PhD as the oil and gas industry faced one of its biggest crashes in the Easter before his graduation. “Back then, myself and all my mates thought that we were going to make lots of money and retire early and do oil and gas,” he said, “[but] all of these jobs we had lined up suddenly disappeared.”  

After finishing his PhD, Professor Bates took his first job in the United States, where he worked in the geophysics consulting industry. He then took up a position at the University of St Andrews School of Earth and Environmental Sciences, where he started to work with biologists and outside of his main field of research. Most of Professor Bates’s time is now spent on archaeology as “in some ways, you can’t just be a specialist in just one technique or one technology, you have to know all of them and apply them in different ways and at different times, so it’s the most interesting work that I do.” 

When asked if he ever saw himself developing an interest in archaeology, Professor Bates replied, “No.” “In high school, I hated history […] the older I get, the more interested I get in history, the more interested I get in archaeology because it’s who we are,” he said. “What I do in geophysics has wide applications. I get my biggest buzz out of looking across disciplines.” 

Professor Bates’s life-long desire “to do things that were society relevant [and] to do things that made a difference” is a message that no doubt serves as an inspiration. He highlighted that this was a key principle he particularly wanted to uphold when he first started working at St Andrews. A lot of his work now focuses on cultural heritage, especially in East Africa, where he has spent time working with indigenous communities. In principle, he aims to strike a balance between looking at the environmental impacts as well as the social aspect of discovering who we are as a species. 

Professor Bates explained that it was hard to summarise briefly what projects he now works on. With current projects in Antarctica, East Africa, the Middle East, and the Himalayas, it is obvious that Professor Bates lives a very busy life travelling and researching, but one that also combines his love for both geophysics and archaeology.

Photo provided by Richard Bates