The potential of integrated GPR survey and aerial photographic analysis of historic urban areas: A case study and digital reconstruction of a Late Roman villa in Durrës (Albania (original) (raw)
This paper focuses on the results of a joint geoarchaeological research project of urban historical remains in the ancient Roman city of Durrës, Albania. The project began with a desk-based analysis of all the historical and archival evidence including aerial photos from the 1920s–40s, a period before major urbanization of the area and prior to the capture of satellite imagery in the 1960s. These aerial photographs were reprocessed and then combined with ground-penetrating radar (GPR) imagery and used to locate a Late Roman villa in the city. The integrated results produced a visual idea of what the villa looked like, when analysed in conjunction with the known archaeological and historical literature. During analysis, different levels of data reliability and resolution have been identified, which inform methodological choices when undertaking reconstructions of the villa. These methodological issues have generic resonance in the reconstruction of urban landscapes.
Related papers
EGU General Assembly …, 2010
The paper presents the preliminary results of an integrated multidiscipliary research project concerning the urban area of the modern Durres (ancient Dyrrachium). Here a joint Italian and Albanian researcher are starting preliminary investigations on the place of an ancient roman villa placed in the urban centre of the modern town. In a initial phase are offering interesting results the use of a rich multitemporal remote sensing data-set, historical aerial photos of 1920s and 1930s, photos of USA spy satellites of 1960s and 1970s (Corona KH-4A and KH-4B), and very high resolution satellite imagery. The historical aerial documentation is very rich and includes aerial photogrammetrich flights of two Italian Institutions: the private company SARA - Società Anonima Rilevamenti Aerofotogrammetrici in Rome (1928) and the IGM - Istituto Geografico Militare (1936, 1937 e 1941), which flew on Durres for purposes of cartographic production and military. These photos offer an image of the city before the urban expansion after the Second World War and in recent decades, progressively documented by satellite images of the 1960s-1970s and recent years. They enable a reconstruction of the ancient topography of the urban area, even with the possibility of detailed analysis, as in the case of the the Roman villa, nowadays buried under a modern garden, but also investigated with a GPR survey, in order to rebuild its plan and contextualize the villa in relation to the urban area of the ancient Dyrrachium.
In Umbria, the transformation from Roman pagan building to church seems to be frequent during the beginning of the Middle Age thanks to Longobards and Byzantines. The rural church of San Lorenzo in Nifili (close to Montecastrilli-TR) is a very good example of this. The aim of this work is to understand the evolution of the ancient landscape around this church, from Roman to modern period, using data coming from both the subsurface and the space, using the GPR (Ground Penetrating Radar) method and the satellite imageries, respectively. Particular data processing to define the evolution of this ancient landscape in southern Umbria is described in this paper. The results not only represent an effective and non-destructive methodology for discovering, recovering and understanding archaeological data, but also give the possibility to obtain archaeological potential values of different areas in order to better plan future researches in this area.
Loading Preview
Sorry, preview is currently unavailable. You can download the paper by clicking the button above.
Related papers
Archaeology in the City: Proceedings of the International Workshop, Amsterdam 16-17 October 2019, eds. G.L.M. Burgers, L. Cicala, G. Iliano, and Μ. Quagliuolo (Naples: Naus Editoria, 2021), 59-72, 2021