PERAIA project

The Greek islands of the Aegean Sea, scattered across 800 kilometers from north to south and between Greece and western Turkey, are uniquely situated at the intersection of Europe, Asia and Africa.

The project name

By the term “Peraia” (περαια) the ancient inhabitants of the Aegean geographically defined the territories beyond their boundaries, generally separated by the sea.

This term seemed to represent a duality: insularity versus continent; land versus sea.

The PERAIA project is designed to analyse and represent the social, economic and cultural impact of the historical networks of mobility and connectivity in the area of contacts between Crete and the Libyan-Egyptian coast, from the Late Bronze Age to the beginning of the Iron Age (c. 1600 – 750 BC). All this, from a methodological approach that integrates the use and processing of satellite imagery, network analysis (SNA) and GIS applied to spatial analysis.

Interdisciplinary approach

Research in Archaeology has experienced exponential growth over the last decades, mainly due to the influence of digital technologies and the fusion of different theoretical schools. Quantitative approaches from the Digital Humanities have opened up new possibilities for interpretation by combining techniques from other disciplines, such as Geography, Computer Science and Social Science, which allow for the development of new research methods.

NASA image acquired October 13, 2012 The Nile River Valley and Delta comprise less than 5 percent of Egypt’s land area, but provide a home to roughly 97 percent of the country’s population. Nothing makes the location of human population clearer than the lights illuminating the valley and delta at night. On October 13, 2012, the Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite (VIIRS) on the Suomi NPP satellite captured this nighttime view of the Nile River Valley and Delta. This image is from the VIIRS “day-night band,” which detects light in a range of wavelengths from green to near-infrared and uses filtering techniques to observe signals such as gas flares, auroras, wildfires, city lights, and reflected moonlight. The city lights resemble a giant calla lily, just one with a kink in its stem near the city of Luxor. Some of the brightest lights occur around Cairo, but lights are abundant along the length of the river. Bright city lights also occur along the Suez Canal and around Tel Aviv. Away from the lights, however, land and water appear uniformly black. This image was acquired near the time of the new Moon, and little moonlight was available to brighten land and water surfaces. NASA Earth Observatory image by Jesse Allen and Robert Simmon, using VIIRS Day-Night Band data from the Suomi National Polar-orbiting Partnership. Suomi NPP is the result of a partnership between NASA, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, and the Department of Defense. Caption by Michon Scott. Instrument: Suomi NPP - VIIRS Credit: NASA Earth Observatory.

Remote Sensing

Geographical Information System

Social Network Analysis

Objectives

The overall aim is to create a geospatial network model to improve the understanding of connectivity at different scales in the Eastern Mediterranean, from the Late Bronze to the Early Iron Age (c. 1600 – 750 BC).

Identify and register the settlements and occupation phases of the coastal communities located in the Libyan Sea area during the (Pre)historical period.

Reconstruct and analyse, in a diachronic and multi-scale approach, the transport network and settlement patterns among the regions located within the study area.

Disseminate and make available research results both to the scientific community and to institutions involved in the protection of terrestrial and underwater archaeological heritage.

Laying the foundations for the creation of an international collaboration network between researchers from different institutions interested in the topics under study.

Research methodology

In terms of research methodology, this project proposes an interdisciplinary approach, integrating specialists from different areas such as: information modelling, satellite remote sensing, Geographic Information Systems (GIS) and network analysis (SNA).

Information modelling. The development of an information model is the essential first step in designing a robust yet modular structure for the spatial database. The aim is to create a model adapted to the research questions of the project, to extend its inferential potential, and at the same time to take into account existing ontologies and published datasets.

Remote sensing. Identify settlements, archaeological structures and landscape units through photo-interpretation and processing of Landsat 8 satellite images, at a spatial resolution between 0.1 – 50 m depending on the scale of the study, recording their morphology, organisation and distribution within the territory and influence within the landscape.

Geographic Information Technologies and spatial analysis for the structured storage, management and processing of alphanumeric and spatial information. Using GIS software, we will georeference the locations by integrating geomorphological and hydrographic data. In addition, the GIS platform will allow us to combine archaeological and environmental data, and to work at different scales (macro, meso and micro) with spatial analysis tools applied to the study of the landscape.

Network analysis and map algebra. Using network analysis (SNA) we will reconstruct the model of the land and sea transport network among these regions. In addition, to represent the properties of the structure we will develop space-time-cost studies between settlements, together with flow diagrams to calculate the most efficient routes and show which ones were used depending on seasonality.