In the last century, the temple offered because of its location 
and its closed form an ideal place for an Islamic “fortification- 
town”. The nearly 70 years old Islamic houses were based on 
the oval enclosure wall. To document the situation of the last 
phase of Sirwah, a survey of the Islamic buildings was made 
additionally. 
  
Figure 2: Aerial photo of the Almaqah Temple 
In 1982 a first photogrammetric survey of the Temple of 
"Almaqah" in Sirwah and the area surrounding it, was 
conducted with the assistance of the Department of 
Photogrammetry of the University of Bonn. Since 1992 the 
German Archaeological Institute carries out researches in this 
area. After a interruption of 7 years the researches continued in 
the year 2001 in cooperation with the department of 
Informationsystems of the German Mining Museum Bochum. 
The new research-campaigns are taking place in an 
interdisciplinary framework of archaeologists, architects, civil 
engineers and surveyors. 
1.2 Documentation 
In order for better understanding of the site and its main temple 
also within its wider geographical settings a large variety of 
surveying methods is used, including the evaluation of satellite 
and aerial imagery, tachometry, GPS measurements etc.. By 
means of hand measurements, total station and 
photogrammetry, plans and elevations of the temple are usually 
documented in a scale of 1:50; only particular findings are 
mapped in scales ranging from 1:20 to 1:1. 
For the essential stock checking of the constructional situation 
just as for the historical analysis of the building, it was 
necessary to visualise the whole complex corresponding to the 
levels of the Islamic buildings in two horizontal elevations and 
three sectional elevations. Only like this functional connections 
between the separates levels can be seen and visualised. Later 
levels which were unearthed after the demolition of the old 
houses were documented by photogrammetry. 
Thus in different cases different solutions for geometric and 
topographic information were applied and visualised in 
archaeological documentation. The employment of advanced, 
computer-aided methods not only for the documentation itself, 
but also for interpretation and historical reconstruction of the 
building, is highly profitable. 
1.3 Infrastructure 
Starting with the idea of “ON SITE DOCUMENTATION” the 
electronically equipment had to be extended to the optimum. In 
practice, this meant the amount of 7 laptops and 1 PC graphic 
workstation as fileserver with a capacity of 140 GB. The 
computers were combined in a network which enabled every 
user to reach the data of his interest of the different members of 
the team at any time. The electrical power for the computers 
was provided by two generators which were running almost 24 
hours a day for they were used also for illumination of the living 
and working space as well as battery chargers for various 
instruments. This was essential for there is no electrical 
powersupply in the oasis until now. 
  
Figure 3: Working Room 
2. DATA AQUISITION 
2.1 Surveying 
2.1.1 Basics: In the early 1990's a topographic survey 
measured the architectural evidence and the iso-lines of what 
later excavations revealed to be the city of Sirwah. 
This body of material, the Survey of Yemen aerial photographs 
and its maps on the scale 1:50.000 of the Oasis of Sirwah 
constituted the basis for our present work started in 2001. 
2.1.2 The Equipment: The equipment consisted of a 
e "WILD-TC1600" Total Station with its essential periphery 
e a totalstation "Leica TCRA 1101" able to record 
measurements onto a built-in memory or directly onto a 
computer. 
e Garmin handheld GPS 12 
e  Trimble 4000 Series GPS Station 
This was, of course, supplemented by a assortment of 
measuring tapes, folding rulers, plumb lines, spirit levels and 
other equipment. 
The use of the GPS-Station and its access to the global world 
system, "WGS84 -UTM", made it possible to connect and 
relate all the control points to an unique reference system. 
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