Searching data for supporting archaeo-landscapes in Cyprus: an overview of aerial, satellite, and cartographic datasets of the island
2016
The landscape of Cyprus is characterized by transformations that occurred during the 20th century, with many of such
changes being still active today. Landscapes’ changes are due to a variety of reasons including war conflicts,
environmental conditions and modern development that have often caused the alteration or even the total loss of
important information that could have assisted the archaeologists to comprehend the archaeo-landscape.
The present work aims to provide detailed information regarding the different existing datasets that can be used to
support archaeologists in understanding the transformations that the landscape in Cyprus undergone, from a remote
sensing perspective. Such datasets may help archaeologists to visualize a lost landscape and try to retrieve valuable
information, while they support researchers for future investigations. As such they can further highlight in a predictive
manner and consequently assess the impacts of landscape transformation -being of natural or anthropogenic cause- to
cultural heritage.
Three main datasets are presented here: aerial images, satellite datasets including spy satellite datasets acquired during
the Cold War, and cadastral maps. The variety of data is provided in a chronological order (e.g. year of acquisitions),
while other important parameters such as the cost and the accuracy are also determined. Individual examples of
archaeological sites in Cyprus are also provided for each dataset in order to underline both their importance and
performance. Also some pre- and post-processing remote sensing methodologies are briefly described in order to
enhance the final results. The paper within the framework of ATHENA project, dedicated to remote sensing
archaeology/CH, aims to fill a significant gap in the recent literature of remote sensing archaeology of the island and to
assist current and future archaeologists in their quest for remote sensing information to support their research.
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