Historical Imagery of Desert Kites in Eastern Jordan

Hammer, Emily; Lauricella, Anthony J.

doi:10.5615/neareastarch.80.2.0074

Cited by 10 publications

(4 citation statements)

References 23 publications

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“…The U2 spy plane program in the Middle East (1956)(1957)(1958)(1959)(1960) provides another source of historical imagery from which archaeologists are only beginning to profit (Hammer and Lauricella 2017;Ur and Reade 2015). Publication of a spatial index for Middle Eastern U2 missions and of procedures for obtaining usable digital copies of film rolls should in the near future enhance the accessibility of this archival aerial imagery (Hammer and Ur 2019).…”

Section: Imagery Datasetsmentioning

confidence: 99%

The City and Landscape of Ur: An Aerial, Satellite, and Ground Reassessment

Hammer¹

2019

Iraq

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New fieldwork at Ur has begun to investigate urban scale, city organization, and the environment of the city's hinterland. Analysis of new sources of declassified aerial and satellite imagery from the 1950s and 1960s, recent unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) photos, and a systematic surface collection show that Ur may have expanded to between 120–500 hectares in size during its later periods of habitation, far larger than the sixty hectare maximum size previously estimated. Traces of buried architecture visible in the UAV photos and topographic models generated from UAV photos allow for the generation of hypotheses about the city plan of Ur during the Late Larsa/Old Babylonian and Neo Babylonian periods. Relict watercourses mapped in the vicinity of the main mound indicate how the city might have been supplied with water in some periods. Alongside this site-based work, historical aerial and satellite imagery provide an updated picture of ancient hydrology, environment, and settlement patterns around Ur.

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Section: Imagery Datasetsmentioning

confidence: 99%

The City and Landscape of Ur: An Aerial, Satellite, and Ground Reassessment

Hammer¹

2019

Iraq

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“…The database also tracks the presence of desert kites. Kites are, of course, present throughout the region and are increasingly well-mapped using satellite and historical imagery [34,41,63]. However, the kites in the survey region overlooked in some of the satellitemapping studies [35], are located well away from the well-documented kite "chains" in the heart of the harra.…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Black Desert Drone Survey: New Perspectives on an Ancient Landscape

Hill

Rowan

2022

Remote Sensing

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This paper presents the results of a large scale, drone-based aerial survey in northeastern Jordan. Drones have rapidly become one of the most cost-effective and efficient tools for collecting high-resolution landscape data, fitting between larger-scale, lower-resolution satellite data collection and the significantly more limited traditional terrestrial survey approaches. Drones are particularly effective in areas where anthropogenic features are visible on the surface but are too small to identify with commonly and economically available satellite data. Using imagery from fixed-wing and rotary-wing aircraft, along with photogrammetric processing, we surveyed an extensive archaeological landscape spanning 32 km2 at the site of Wadi al-Qattafi in the eastern badia region of Jordan, the largest archaeological drone survey, to date, in Jordan. The resulting data allowed us to map a wide range of anthropogenic features, including hunting traps, domestic structures, and tombs, as well as modern alterations to the landscape including road construction and looting pits. We documented thousands of previously unrecorded and largely unknown prehistoric structures, providing an improved understanding of major shifts in the prehistoric use of this landscape.

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“…At nadir, these films had spatial resolution between 0.30 and 0.50 m, depending on the elevation of the ground above sea level. Archaeological studies using U2 film have begun to appear (Ur and Reade 2015; Hammer and Lauricella 2017; and see case studies in Hammer and Ur 2019). Two U2 missions covered parts of the Erbil Plain: Mission 8648 on 30 October 1959 and Mission 1554 on 29 January 1960 (Fig.…”

Section: Remote Sensing and Field Survey Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Erbil Plain Archaeological Survey: Preliminary Results, 2012–2020

Ur¹,

Babakr²,

Palermo³

et al. 2021

Iraq

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The Erbil Plain Archaeological Survey (EPAS) investigates settlement and land use from the Neolithic to the present in the Erbil Governorate of the Kurdistan Region of Iraq, which includes a large portion of the core of the Assyrian Empire. In seven field seasons, it has documented a broad settlement landscape in a region of great social and political importance, especially in the Bronze and Iron Ages, including 728 archaeological sites. Its field methodology combines traditional surface collection with the use of historical aerial and satellite photographs, mobile GIS, and UAV (drone) photogrammetry. Preliminary results show some unexpected patterns: a high density of culturally Uruk settlements in the fourth millennium B.C., variable urban morphologies in the Early Bronze Age; and large but low-density settlements at the end of the Sasanian period or the early Islamic period. The project is explicitly testing several hypotheses about centralized Neo-Assyrian landscape planning in the imperial core. These hypotheses appear to be confirmed, although the situation was more complex than in surrounding provinces, probably due to the longer history of continuous settlement.

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Historical Imagery of Desert Kites in Eastern Jordan

Cited by 10 publications

References 23 publications

The City and Landscape of Ur: An Aerial, Satellite, and Ground Reassessment

The City and Landscape of Ur: An Aerial, Satellite, and Ground Reassessment

The Black Desert Drone Survey: New Perspectives on an Ancient Landscape

The Erbil Plain Archaeological Survey: Preliminary Results, 2012–2020

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