Revealing the paleolandscape features around the archaeological sites in the northern Nile Delta of Egypt using radar satellite imagery and GEE platform

Abstract

Egyptian civilization has long flourished along the banks of the Nile, in the south (e.g. Luxor and Aswan), the Middle (e.g. Giza ‘Great Pyramids’) and North (e.g. San El-Hagar and Buto), as well as the less populated areas of the Sinai Peninsula, the Western Desert and the Red Sea coast. There are archaeological sites date back to the Palaeolithic period and cover the Pre-dynastic, Pharaonic, Hellenistic-Roman, Coptic and Muslim periods. Across the Nile Delta, many of these archaeological sites have disappeared beneath Nile alluvium from the annual inundation or through intensive agricultural use, climate changes and other anthropogenic activities. This study aims to detect the long-term changes in the landscape of the archaeological area of Burullus on the Mediterranean shoreline in the North Delta of Egypt. By combining data from historic topographic maps with Radar Sentinel-1 (High-resolution Level-1 GRD) and SRTM data, topographic signatures in satellite imagery can be compared with the historic record of archaeological sites, many of which are now lost. Image layering, enhancement and analysis using ENVI 5.1, ArcMap 10.4.1 and Snap 8.0 software as well as Google Earth Pro facilitated the imagery identification and acquisition. The results of this study provide a means of quantifying the significant loss of cultural heritage sites due to anthropogenic and natural changes in the landscape. This analysis has also identified two—previously unknown—potential archaeological sites. Finally, the reconstruction of the paleolandscape of the study area shows the changing relationships of ancient and historic settlements with natural and man-made waterways over time. Integrating remote sensing data and historic maps offers a method for evaluating paleolandscapes and locating disappeared archaeological sites that can be applied in other areas of Egypt and the world.