Multitemporal High-Resolution Satellite Images for the Study and Monitoring of an Ancient Mesopotamian City and its Surrounding Landscape: The Case of Ur
The paper concerns the use of multitemporal high-resolution satellite images for the study of the ancient city of Ur, in southern Mesopotamia, inaccessible to scholars from 2003. The acquired dataset is composed by two Gambit KH-7 (1966) and one Corona KH-4B (1968) declassified spy space photos and by few images taken by the recent satellites for civilian use QuickBird-2 (2002, 2004, 2007), Ikonos-2 (2008), and WorldView-1 (2008). The processing of all these images and the integration with ASTER and SRTM DEMs allowed the acquisition of new data about the topographical layout of the city and its monuments and ancient roads; the georeferencing of all archaeological remains and traces visible on the images allowed the upgrade of the archaeological map of Ur. The research also provided important data concerning the reconstruction of the surrounding landscape, where a lot of traces of old channels and riverbeds of the Euphrates were identified in areas much modified and altered during the last decades by urbanization and agricultural works. Moreover, the multitemporal images allowed the monitoring of the conservation of the archaeological area, particularly before and after second Gulf War. 1. Introduction The research activity concerning Ur was gained in the context of the “Virtual Museum of Iraq” Project, promoted by the Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and carried out by the National Research Council (CNR) of Italy. The project was designed to the construction of a Virtual Museum of the ancient civilizations that flourished in the territory of modern Iraq; the result was a rich website (http://www.virtualmuseumiraq.cnr.it/), free to the general public, based on the archaeological collection of one of the most important museums in the world. In fact, in 2003, during the 2nd Gulf War, the National Museum of Baghdad has been looted, stripping it of a priceless collection of cultural artefacts that are important historical treasures not only for Iraqi people but also for all humanity. The “Virtual Museum of Iraq” Project explored different new integrated digital technologies for virtual heritage, particularly focusing on the use of image-based 3D modelling and satellite remote sensed data [1–7]. Specifically, the present work concerns the case of the ancient city of Ur, in southern Mesopotamia (Figure 1), that is exemplificative of the contribution of high-resolution satellite images for the reconstruction of the ancient topography and the monitoring of the site. Figure 1: Ur in the southern Mesopotamia (Digital Elevation Model processed from the Shuttle
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