CIPA 2003 XIX th International Symposium, 30 September - 04 October, 2003, Antalya, Turkey
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latitude, 39-40° E longitude) and belongs to the
Greater Southwestern Asian Arid Zone (Zarins
1992). According to the definition given by
ACSAD (the Arab Center for the Studies of Arid
Zones and Dry Lands), the area of Jebel Bishri
covers over one million hectares. The mountain is
a continuation of the Palmyrenian Range (see,
e.g., Syria, Space Image Atlas by General
Organization of Remote Sensing, Damascus
1996) and corresponds its general geological
character with limestone, marble, sandstone and
salts. On the Euphratine side there also exist marl
terraces.
Culturally the mountain is limited with the Silk
Road to the south, the Roman Eastern Frontier to
the west and north, and the Euphrates River to the
north and east. Environmentally the area has been
an important border zone through millennia:
between desert and sown; between nomads and
village agriculturalists in the changing situations of
world powers. Jebel Bishri has been mentioned as
a central nomadic breeding ground already in the
Mesopotamian cuneiform sources dating to the
3rd millennium B.C. (see, e.g., Buccellati 1966).
Through the basic mapping the SYGIS project
wishes not only to build the awareness of the
ancient remains in the area but also to study the
past and present development of the nomadic life
and sedentarization processes. This long-term
perspective offers new approaches for planning
enduring development in the region, and therefore
ethnoarchaeological themes have been applied
into the project design. Co-operation with the GIS
and Remote Sensing Laboratory of ACSAD has
been enhanced in the project.* ACSAD has an
environmental GIS project of its own in the area
of Jebel Bishri to combat against desertification.
* Co-operation between SYGIS and ACSAD
The SYGIS project and ACSAD have together planned
computer and GIS education for the staff of the Syrian
Antiquities Department using Jebel Bishri as an area for a
case study. The plan is to help to generate the
standardization of the Syrian Antiquities Department
recording and documentation system as well as initiating the
building up of a database with GIS applications from
different sources including remote sensing data.
2. SURVEYING AND MAPPING
JEBEL BISHRI IN SYRIA
2.1. Remote Sensing Data for
Prospecting and Mapping
Actually the first applications of the remote
sensing methods in archaeology started in the
close neighbourhood of Jebel Bishri in the 1920s.
Father A. Poidebard (Poidebard 1934) and Sir
Aurel Stein (see, e.g., Stein apud Kennedy 1982)
made aerial surveys over the Roman Eastern
Frontier, i.e., the so-called Limes. A. Poidebard
especially utilized different times of the daylight
and seasons with various vegetation covers in
prospecting ancient remains in the region (Brooks,
R.R. - Johannes, D. 1990).
Following the footsteps of the early pioneers D.
Kennedy and D. Riley have been using remote
sensing methods in the Roman Desert Frontier
(Kennedy 1982, Kennedy - Riley 1990) for
decades. D. Kennedy has also introduced the
CORONA declassified satellite photograph
archives (EROS, US government) for the study of
archaeological sites on the outer side of the
Euphrates in Turkey (Kennedy 1998). In the
application of the CORONA declassified satellite
photographs Kennedy's studies have been
followed by J. Ur on the Habur Plains in
northeastern Syria (Ur 2003) and by SYGIS on
Jebel Bishri in Central Syria. GORS (General
Organisation of Remote Sensing in Syria) has
recently produced an archaeological space atlas
illustrating distinguished ancient remains in Syria.
Desert-steppe areas are ideal for prospecting with
satellite images, because remains are more often
visible on the surface when depositional processes
caused by agriculture or direct human interference
do not exist (see, e.g., Scollar 1990: 1).
The Finnish SYGIS project working in the area
has applied satellite technology with image
processing and GPS (the Global Positioning
