Abstract
This paper presents a selected aspect of research conducted within the Gaugamela Project, which seeks to finally identify the location of one of the most important ancient battles: the Battle of Gaugamela (331 BCE). The aim of this study was to discover material remains of the Macedonian military camp on the Navkur Plain in Kurdish Iraq. For this purpose, three very high resolution satellite (VHRS) datasets from Pleiades and WorldView-2 were acquired and subjected to multi-variant image processing (development of different color composites, integration of multispectral and panchromatic images, use of principle component analysis transformation, use of vegetation indices). Documentation of photointerpretation was carried out through the vectorization of features/areas. Due to the character of the sought-after artifacts (remnants of a large enclosure), features were categorized into two types: linear features and areal features. As a result, 19 linear features and 2 areal features were found in the study area of the Mahad hills. However, only a few features fulfilled the expected geometric criteria (layout and size) and were subjected to field groundtruthing, which ended in negative results. It is concluded that no traces have been found that could be interpreted as remnants of an earthen enclosure capable of accommodating around 47,000 soldiers. Further research perspectives are also suggested.
Highlights
The vocabulary employed in ancient sources for the description of the Macedonian camp indicates the use of a protective trench sources for the description of the Macedonian camp indicates the use of a protective trench and palisade(charax)
The Macedonian marching camp was a space enclosed by
Given the have fact that the camp the fact that the wall campofwas by 47,000 troops, it must enclosed a was used by Macedonian troops, it must have enclosed a space of considerable space of considerable size, approximately between 30 and 192 ha. size, approximately between
Summary
Despite the great importance of this battle, its exact location is disputed This situation results from the state of the extant historical sources [8,9,10,11,12,13,14]. In detecting the course of the canal have been identified within the Mahad hills Their number only allows for preliminary in our images, both vegetation and local changes in water conditions—local land conclusions as to the usefulness of the collected image materials in the search for this desiccation—proved to be important indicators. Despite the above-mentioned reservations, the obtained results in the autumn season, when the persistence of stable weather led plant vegetation into its (19 detected linear features) allowed us to critically evaluate our materials and methods, final stage and agricultural work was completed (harvest in most fields). These rankings may offer practical tips for future work in studies of this type, especially in the initial stages of selecting imaging materials
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