Documentation of some Cultural Heritage Emergencies in Syria In August 2010 by Spherical Photrammetry

Abstract

Abstract. Syria is a country of many civilizations, Marie, Aramaic, Phoenician, Roman, Byzantine, Islamic, Ottoman civilizations. Unfortunally the recent war is the reason for many cultural heritage items to be destroyed, beyond the thausand civilian people killed. In 2010, just before the war, the A. made a touristic trip together with Crua (Recreational Club of the Ancona University). It was the occasion to make some fast documentation of some Syrian CH monuments. Mostly of the images were taken by the A. not to make a survey, but as a photographic report, as fast and complete as possible. For a regular survey project, the tripod, the spherical head should be used for the takings and the 3x3 Cipa rules should be followed, that occurred only in the three main projects, say the survey of the citadel walls in Aleppo, the survey of the Umayyads Mosque in Damascus, and the survey of the minaret of the Umayyads Mosque in Aleppo. All the other documentation surveys have been carried out with hand-held camera taking the dimension of the model from Google earth high resolution, when available. But, apart the regular surveys, due to the explosion of the unexpected war, the photographs taken in such a touristic way, have been used to try to get some usable plottings an restitutions and it worked successfully mostly of the times. These surveys could be useful in case of reconstruction and in case of lack of suitable alternative metric documentation. Because of the continuing threats, all six Syrian World Heritage properties were inscribed on the List of World Heritage in Danger, at the 37th session of the World Heritage Committee, held in Cambodia last June: Ancient City of Aleppo, Ancient City of Bosra, Ancient City of Damascus, Ancient Villages of Northern Syria, Krak des Chevaliers and Qal’at Salah El-Din ans finally the Site of Palmyra. See the following links: https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=kr.a3e0DL5sA and https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ltFFjjrUgtU. Apart the Ancient Villages of Northern Syria, the A. visited all the World Heritage sites and partly documented. Some of them have already been plotted, some are in the orientation stage, some have been documented only.