Analysis of Corona Imagery of the Ebla Region

The environment of Tell Mardikh/Ebla represents a key area to understand the urbanization process in the Ancient Near East, with specific reference to the third millennium b.c. However, after the early surveys carried out in this region between the 1960s and the 1970s, no systematic and up-to-date archaeological investigation has been attempted (see Mantellini, Micale, and Peyronel, in this volume). Thus, the first aim of the Ebla Chora Project (ECP) was to provide an assessment of the archaeological sites and landscape transformations in the area under investigation. One of the first and major tasks was therefore the location of landscape features due to past human activities, including tells, offsites, canals, linear hollows, and other features of potential archaeological interest. The recent and numerous projects conducted on a regional scale between Syria and Mesopotamia highlighted the usefulness of combining the different spatial datasets available in order to reconstruct the settlement dynamics and the landscape transformations of a given territory (Galiatsatos et al. 2009). This paper will discuss the application of such an approach within the area investigated by the ECP in order to identify potential sites to be further explored on the ground.