Assessing Looting from Space: The Destruction of Early Iron Age Burials in Northern Xinjiang
1
China Studies Centre, University of Sydney, Sydney 2006, Australia
2
Institute for Archaeological Sciences, University of Bern, 3012 Bern, Switzerland
Heritage 2018, 1(2), 320-327; https://doi.org/10.3390/heritage1020021
Received: 12 October 2018 / Accepted: 25 October 2018 / Published: 1 November 2018
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Space Technologies for the Sustainable Development of Natural and Cultural Heritage Sites)
Burial mounds (kurgans) of the Early Iron Age in the steppe zones of Central Asia have long been the target of severe looting activities. Protection of these monuments in remote areas is difficult since accurate mapping is rarely available. We map an area in northern Xinjiang using a combination of high-resolution optical data and on-ground survey to establish a quantitative and qualitative assessment of looting. We find that at least 74.5% of burial mounds are looted or otherwise destroyed. Due to the large number of visibly impacted burial mounds, it becomes clear that the bulk of cultural heritage of the Early Iron Age in this area is under threat. The looting, however, continues until present day. Rescue excavation of potentially untouched burials in the area is advisable.
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Keywords:
looting; kurgan; Xinjiang; steppe archaeology; Iron Age; burial mound; Scythian
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MDPI and ACS Style
Caspari, G. Assessing Looting from Space: The Destruction of Early Iron Age Burials in Northern Xinjiang. Heritage 2018, 1, 320-327. https://doi.org/10.3390/heritage1020021
AMA Style
Caspari G. Assessing Looting from Space: The Destruction of Early Iron Age Burials in Northern Xinjiang. Heritage. 2018; 1(2):320-327. https://doi.org/10.3390/heritage1020021
Chicago/Turabian StyleCaspari, Gino. 2018. "Assessing Looting from Space: The Destruction of Early Iron Age Burials in Northern Xinjiang" Heritage 1, no. 2: 320-327. https://doi.org/10.3390/heritage1020021
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