Author:

Keywords:

Remote Sensing, Archaeology

Abstract:

Documenting and mapping cultural heritage is an important aspect nowadays in geo-archaeological research. The rapidly changing surroundings of Dayr al-Barshã where not only physical but also anthropogenic dynamics strongly influence the environment aren’t an exception. Although archaeologist and geomorphologist work nowadays with remote sensing data, it is mainly done in two dimensions. The third dimension can complement this data because it introduces the height component which is quiet important in mapping and analyzing archeological and physical environments. This height component can be introduced using photogrammetry and using its derived products like digital surface models (DSMs) and orthoimages The elevation data is generated out of stereoscopic images from not only satellites like Corona, Worldview and GeoEye but also terrestrial photography and ground control points taken in the field. First of all DSMs and orthoimages have been computed using satellite images from 1970, 2009 and 2012. The most recent ones are further used as a base map to plot archaeological sites. Contour lines acquired from the generated DSMs are a perfect tool to better understand the (natural) environment of these features. To analyze anthropogenic and physical landscape dynamics, a pixel-wise subtraction is used on the DSMs from the different periods. This results in quantifying village changes, river bed movement and estimated dune volumes. Photo modeling out of terrestrial images is a second approach in this work. To accurately document and reconstruct different archaeological objects, they were photographed, measured and processed, using photo modelling software. A main example in this case was a weaver loom dug out in a quarry. Using this photo modelling approach and literature we were able to reconstruct the loom. The elaborated work illustrates that photogrammetric techniques hold great potential for geo-archaeological research from different image sources and at different (time) scales. This abstract fit within the APLADYN project: a Belgian Science Policy project on anthropogenic and landscape dynamics in large fluvial systems.