The Cultural Heritage of Samarkand: field surveys, archive data and GIS data management

The Samarkand Region is one of the most important areas in Central Asia in terms of quality and quantity of archaeological sites and historical monuments. Since 1999 the activities of the Uzbek-Italian Archaeological Project Samarkand and Its Territory were devoted to the recovery of traces of ancient human activities in the southern part of the region, in order to reconstruct the major settlement phases and the territorial transformations occurred in the area. The Archaeological Map of the Middle Zeravshan Valley was therefore planned for a double purpose. On the one hand, the assessment of all the archaeological sites and the historical monuments was aimed at the preservation, conservation, and valorization of the huge cultural heritage of Samarkand; on the other hand, the analysis of the data collected allow the interpretation of the historical development of the city and its neighbors in connection with the main landscape transformation and territory exploitation. The investigation concerned the main administrative districts around the city of Samarkand: Samarkand City itself, Samarkand Selski, Urgut, Taylak, Pasdargom, and Nurabad. A key-role in the research was played by an approach combining the field investigation with the preliminary detection of the archaeological sites on spatial datasets that differ in scale and age. The historical topographical maps of the Soviet period (1940-50’s) at 10,000, 25,000, and 100,000 scale were useful to identify the sites, even those destroyed after the agricultural policy of the last decades that turned a large part of Samarkand’s territory into cultivable surface, especially for cotton and grape. The satellite images from US CORONA program (late 1960’s) and Soviet aerial photos (early 1970’s) were particularly suitable to detect both the sites and the anthropogenic features in the ground such as canals and other hydraulic structures. Finally, the Google EarthTM satellite image provide the most updated situation of the territory under exploration, thus representing an essential tool during the field activities. The investigation (still in progress in Pasdargom district) resulted in ca. 1500 archaeological sites. Although around the 40% of sites has been destroyed because of agricultural expansion and urbanization, such a number of sites testifies the major role played by Samarkand and its territory along the ancient Silk Road and within the history of Central Asia.