Horus Project: aerospace technologies for archaeological research

This contribution presents the project “Horus. Aerial Visions of the Archaeological Space”, coordinated by the Department of Cultural Heritage: Archaeology and History of Art, Cinema and Music and the Center of Studies and Activities for Space “Giuseppe Colombo” (CISAS) of the University of Padova. Its main goals deal with the investigation of the ancient environment using innovative remote-sensing and aerospace technologies. The proto-historic village of the Bostel di Rotzo (VI, Italy) and the Egyptian site of Tebtynis (Fayum oasis) were chosen among the ongoing excavations and studies of the Department in order to evaluate a set of new methodologies and apply them in very different archaeological contexts. The project also promoted the design of a custom octocopter equipped with digital and IR cameras and the digitalization of a series of historic aerial photographs and maps of the 1930s, which were analyzed and compared with recent satellite multi-spectral imagery. The results were implemented in a GIS platform in order to store, manipulate and analyze the spatial and archaeological data of both the considered contexts.