Geophysics, satelite imagery, urban survey and archaeological excavations – complementary contributions to reconstruct a past urban landscape: the case of Sagalassos (SW-Turkey)

Branko MUŠI?¹ / Femke MARTENS² / Inge UYTTERHOEVEN² / Veronique DE LAET³ / Jeroen POBLOME² / Dominique SIMILOX-TOHON⁴ / Marc WAELKENS²

(¹University of Ljubljana, Department of Archaeology, Slovenia / ²University of Leuven, Sagalassos Archaeological Research Project, Belgium / ³University of Leuven, Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences, Belgium / ⁴University of Leuven, Structural Geology and Tectonics Group, Belgium)

The ancient city of Sagalassos in Pisidia, located 10 km SSW of the modern town of Isparta, developed into a prosperous city during Hellenistic and Roman times. The city was damaged several times by tectonic activity during Roman early-Byzantine times and was largely abandoned during the first half of the 7th century AD, not long after it was struck by a devastating earthquake. Since 1990, a team directed by Marc Waelkens of the Catholic University of Leuven is conducting interdisciplinary research on the ancient town and its territory. Within the framework of this multidisciplinary project several scientific disciplines, either or not traditionally linked to archaeology, collaborate to reconstruct the development of the site in relation to its natural environment. Two-dimensional resistivity imaging and high resolution satelite imagery complement the multi-method archaeogeophysical prospection, as applied to the town and its hinterland. For the site, where the project’s archaeological field work initially mainly focused on the excavation of the town centre, a new integrated research approach was initiated in 1998 to reconstruct the spatial and chronological development of the wider urban area of the town, as part of a PhD by F. Martens. A series of test soundings were excavated throughout the urban area, whereas simultaneously a programme of intensive archaeological survey was carried out between 1999 and 2005, comprising of the systematic collection of all archaeological surface evidence as well as the systematic recording of surface architecture. Important progress was made in the urban research, when from 2002 onwards also geophysical survey was applied at Sagalassos, which was carried out by a team supervised by B. Music. The combination of the archaeological research results with the evidence from the geophysical survey and the high resolution remote sensing and geomorphological analyses (V. de Laet), show that an integrated approach combining different research techniques and fields of expertise can lead to a better understanding of the layout and organization of ancient urban landscapes and it illustrates how the results of various spatial analyses can be complementary contributions to the reconstruction of past cultural landscape.