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Lot 78
[Gemini IV] THE CRADLE OF CIVILIZATION FROM SPACE: Egypt's Nile River Delta James McDivitt, 3-7 June 1965
14 – 28 April 2025, 12:00 CEST
Paris, Avenue Hoche€500 - €700
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[Gemini IV] THE CRADLE OF CIVILIZATION FROM SPACE: Egypt's Nile River Delta
James McDivitt, 3-7 June 1965
Printed 1965.
Vintage chromogenic print on fibre-based Kodak paper [NASA image S-65-34776].
With NASA caption numbered "S-65-34776" and "A Kodak Paper" watermark on the reverse (issued by NASA Manned Spacecraft Centre, Houston, Texas).
20.3 x 25.4 cm. (8 x 10 in.)
Historical context
This photograph, capturing Egypt's Nile River Delta, the cradle of civilization, from space, symbolizes a new evolution in the history of humanity now able to leave its planet. It was astronaut James McDivitt's favourite Earth photograph from the Gemini IV mission.
Printed 1965.
Vintage chromogenic print on fibre-based Kodak paper [NASA image S-65-34776].
With NASA caption numbered "S-65-34776" and "A Kodak Paper" watermark on the reverse (issued by NASA Manned Spacecraft Centre, Houston, Texas).
20.3 x 25.4 cm. (8 x 10 in.)
Historical context
This photograph, capturing Egypt's Nile River Delta, the cradle of civilization, from space, symbolizes a new evolution in the history of humanity now able to leave its planet. It was astronaut James McDivitt's favourite Earth photograph from the Gemini IV mission.
Footnotes
"After I got in orbit, we looked out and saw the Nile Delta come up for the first time; I took a picture of the Delta on three or four passes. You only get one pass a day where you could get this angle of the delta from well to the west where you can look out and see Egypt, Israel, Jordan, Syria, Lebanon—even up to Saudi Arabia. That's got to be my favourite Earth photo."
— James McDivitt (Schick and Van Haaften, p. 37)
"For centuries, man has looked on the Nile Valley as one of the cradles of civilization. Generations have explored, excavated, and interpreted the significance of the Nile and its delta, but it was not until 1965 that the world received its first panoramic view of this sprawling spectacle on the northern coast of Africa. This picture revealed, for the first time as an entity, the 500,000-square-mile delta with its collar of wind-whipped rock and desert. This photograph became an important data point in man's quest to understand his environment."
— Gemini VII and Apollo 8 astronaut Frank Borman (Cortright, p. 144)
Literature
National Geographic, November 1966, pp. 644-645
The View from Space: American Astronaut Photography 1962-1972, Schick and Van Haaften, p. 37
Exploring Space with a Camera (NASA SP-168), Cortright, ed., p. 144
Earth Photographs from Gemini III, IV and V, NASA SP-129, p. 30
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