EXCAVATION MONITORING WITH UAV IN ŞANLIURFA CASTLE ARCHAEOLOGICAL SITE

Year 2019, Volume: 1 Issue: 1, 23 - 26, 01.12.2019

Mustafa Ulukavak , Abdulkadir Memduhoğlu Halil İbrahim Şenol , Nizar Polat

Abstract

There
are many archaeological sites in the world from past civilizations. These
areas, which are cultural heritage sites, have suffered severe destruction and
deformation because of humanitarian interventions such as earthquakes and
floods or wars. These demolitions and deformations continue today. Therefore,
archaeologists try to document all objects of potential value that they uncover
as a result of excavation. Documentation is also necessary for the
identification and interpretation of the found objects, as well as for
restoration and reconstruction which are possible after archaeological
excavation. For this reason, the documentation process is as sensitive as
possible, without damaging the objects and requires the correct way. At this
point, recently, fast and practical, very high-resolution images, low cost and
repetitive use due to the unmanned aircraft (UAV) began to be preferred in
documentation studies. In this study, UAV usage is given in the archaeological
excavations of Urfa Castle.

 

It is
estimated that the fortress of Urfa was built on a Neolithic settlement mound,
dating back to 9500 BC, and it is estimated that the last building of the
castle, which is currently standing, is between the 6th and 11th centuries.
Within the scope of the study, the litter was prepared by using UAV for the
archaeological excavations of the Urfa Fortress located in the historic Balıklı
Göl plateau in the centre of Şanlıurfa province and the flight repetitions were
planned during the excavation. In the first step of the study, the entire
fortress area in 4 columns from a height of 80m was photographed with UAV. The
orthophoto produced using photographs with high terrestrial resolution (1.3 cm)
was divided into 10x10m squares and shared with the archaeology team. A second
UAV flight was carried out at a height of 50m after the excavations started. By
using two UAV flight data, the total volume of soil uncovered in the first
phase of the excavation area was calculated and the first visual documentation
of the excavation area was obtained.

Keywords

UAV, Photogrammetry, Archaeology, Documentation, Sanlıurfa

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