Aimed aerial surveys

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During the activities of the "FIRB-Appia antica" project, focussed aero-topographic researches were carried out at the Ancient Topography Laboratory of the Department of Literature and Cultural Heritage of the "Luigi Vanvitelli" University of Campania. These researches were based on the methodological principles featuring the topographic discipline and cartographic methods and aimed at obtaining a detailed mapping of the quarry areas in order to infer the traces of the ancient mining activity. Photo-interpretation activities and aero-photogrammetric surveys of the slopes corroborated by direct field checks defined with particular clarity the morphology of the site, highlighting in detail the consistent traces referable to an articulated mining activity already recognized by L. Quilici. The study therefore tended to integrate the already reported evidences with what was possible to acquire through the photo-interpretation of numerous images and the targeted photogrammetry, taking into account the different anthropogenic modifications that, during the long history of use of the Appia route, partly confused the natural geomorphology of the places and the ancient morphology. The collation of aerial images of several years, from 1942 to 2011, different by type and scale, traces the recent history of these transformations (fig 1).

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  The St. Andrea Valley (Fondi-Itri): the territory imaged in a vertical aerial photograph of the IGM (1942). The arrows indicate the main irregularities of the terrain.
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  The St. Andrea Valley (Fondi-Itri): the territory imaged in a vertical digital aerial photograms of the Lazio Region (2002), which was adopted as the basis for the aero-photogrammetric restitution.
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  The St. Andrea Valley (Fondi-Itri): detail of the targeted aero-photogrammetry with indication, in pink, of the recognized quarry areas.

The photogrammetric model was elaborated in a digital environment with a "Z-Map photo suite" photogrammetric station (Menci Software). It is a structured system for the combined management of vector data (output of restitution model) and raster (the input stereoscopic pair), designed and used specifically in the cartographic field. Starting from a digital vertical stereoscopic photogrammetric pair - with a resolution of 800 dpi produced by the Lazio Region in 2002 (fig. 2) - an aero-photogrammetric model was returned for geo-archaeological use on a scale of 1: 3000, with a 1m resolution tracking of contour lines for mountain and hill slopes included in the study area, characterized or not by known archaeological sites, for a total area of about 100 hectares. The micro relief thus obtained has allowed us to accurately reconstruct the forms of the landscape and to read the "signs", the material traces of the exploitation and modifications of the territory (fig. 3).