The contribution of historical aerial and satellite photos to archaeological and geo-archaeological research: case studies in Italy and Turkey

The paper evidences the importance of old aerial and satellite photos of ancient topography studies, with examples concerning archaeological and geo-archaeological research conducted in Italy and Turkey, during a cooperation between the Ancient Topography, Archaeology and Remote Sensing Laboratory (AnTAReS Lab) of the Institute for Archaeological and Monumental Heritage of the Italian National Research Council (IBAM-CNR) and the Ancient Topography and Photogrammetry Laboratory (LabTAF) of Salento University. The historical aerial photos, i.e. those before the big transformations
of the 1950's and 1960's, and the space photos
taken in the 1960's and 1970's, particularly useful for the
Near East, represent a fundamental tool for the study of the
territory. In many cases, in fact, they document landscapes
that have been modified by urbanization, building of large
infrastructures, transformations in the land use and diffusion
of mechanized agricultural methods. Only through the detailed
analysis of these aerial and space photos it is possible
to recover a fundamental documentation concerning the existence,
the location and the layout of archaeological evidence
and paleo-environmental elements otherwise lost; so, their
use during research is very important for the reconstruction
of the ancient topography of urban and territorial contexts.