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Cl PA 2003 XIX th International Symposium, 30 September - 04 October, 2003, Antalya, Turkey 
System). The project has used LANDSAT-7 
images (sensor: ETM, Path/Row 172/000, 
Lat/Lon: 35:18:000/39:28:20, bands 123456789, 
level: SYSCOR, Cal: Pre-Flight; Rsmpl: NN, 
scene: full floating, format: GEOS, Acq. Date 
1999-11-29) for mapping and environmental 
study. LANDSAT-7 ETM offers optical 
multispectral channels (see Fig. 1) with 30 m pixel 
and a panchromatic channel with 15 m pixel. 
Surveying larger areas has been carried out with 
the multispectral channels, and close-look-ups 
have been executed with the panchromatic 
channel. LANDS AT images are particularly 
applicable for the archaeological prospecting 
Figure 1. LANDSAT-7 ETM multispectral 
combination image showing Tar al-Sbai, our case 
study area at Jebel Bishri. 
that is utilizing environmental indicators such as 
the availability of water sources and the existence 
of oases in the desert. Queries for such purposes 
can be made with the Arclnfo program. 
The NASA shuttle radar topography mapping 
mission (SRTM) 2000 into which the SYGIS 
project was accepted through DLR provides with 
X-SAR/SRTM, i.e., radar data such as DEM tiles 
-based topographical models of Jebel Bishri. The 
data can be fused with LANDSAT images. 
The panchromatic channel of LANDSAT-7 ETM 
is sufficient for general field maps showing 
environmental features and roads. Because 
accurate maps are not available in Syria, the 
project has produced field maps from the 
panchromatic channel in Finland. The images were 
first orthorectified using British military aviation 
maps (TPC G-4C-4D scale 1: 500 000). After that 
the field maps were produced in different scales 
from 1: 50 000 to 1: 20 000 using the MapSheets 
Express program of ERDAS which can be 
downloaded without charge from the internet. 
Archaeologically only larger sedentary remains 
such as castles and tells are visible in the kinds of 
resolutions offered by the panchromatic channel 
of LANDSAT-7 ETM. From the orthorectified 
panchromatic channel one is able to obtain UTM 
coordinates for such larger remains. The 
panchromatic channel has also served our study in 
locating and mapping the layouts of the present- 
day semi-nomadic villages, such as Shanhas 1.4 
km from Eastern Qasr al-Hair (see Fig. 1. and 
Shanhas: http: //www.helsinki.fi/hum/arla/sygis). 
CORONA declassified satellite photographs 
(optical panchromatic, pixel 1.8 m) and QuickBird 
images (optical panchromatic, pan-sharpened, 4 
channels, pixel 0.6 m) are especially applicable for 
distinguishing different types of structures. Before 
using the CORONA satellite photographs they 
need to be scanned from a film to reach a good 
spatial resolution. The prices of the CORONA 
satellite photographs are inexpensive (ca. 20 USD 
for a photograph covering even hundreds of 
square kilometers), but the QuickBird images 
belong to a completely different price category 
(ca. 1150 USD for a piece covering 8 km x 8 km).