Producing Image Map of Thebes Necropolis Cultural Heritage Site: The Mortuary Temple of King Ramses III at Habo Luxor, Egypt

Abstract

In the recent past, archaeologists used in their study traditional methods. Now, remote sensors have become essential equipment in archaeology studies, either used on board satellites in space or on airborne. Producing modern maps for the archaeological sites is very essential for develop and protect it. The Orientation of ancient Egyptians constructions is still surprising among astronomers and scholars in the world to find out how ancient Egyptians oriented the axis of their constructions with high accuracy. Main research objective is using remote sensing data and techniques to assess producing image map and to determine the direction of the axis of Heritage site. The Mortuary Temple of King Ramses III at Habo Luxor, Egypt has been selected as study area. The study area covered with QuickBird 0.6m resolution slandered pansharped images. A coarse digital elevation model DEM has been used release the topographic relief. Also, ground control points GCPs and check points CPs have been used for geometric correction and image map accuracy assessment. The proposed methodology involves many steps included geometric correction of QuickBird satellite imagery using an appropriate mathematical model and asses the scale of the produced image map. After that, the direction of the main axis of the heritage site has been determined. A comparative study has been performed between traditional method based on direct GPS measurements and the suggested method. The obtained results of the study showed that the accuracy of the produced image map using second order polynomial function gives TRMS 4.288m which satisfies theoretical large scale mapping of 1: 10 000. The difference between axis direction of the temple from the produced image and from GPS direct measurements was ± 0 deg 59 min 7 sec.