期刊名称：ISPRS Annals of the Photogrammetry, Remote Sensing and Spatial Information Sciences
印刷版ISSN：2194-9042
电子版ISSN：2194-9050
出版年度：2004
卷号：XXXV Part B5
页码：558-563
出版社：Copernicus Publications
摘要：The discovery of the so-called Dead Sea Scrolls in 1947 at Khirbet Qumran generated excitement and archaeological investigations on the western shore of the Dead Sea. The excavations from the late 1940s until 1956 revealed a settlement and a large cemetery. A common belief is that the Essenes who produced the manuscripts inhabited the site. A team consisting of Finnish and British archaeologists and a natural scientist was formed in 1994 to do a topographical and spatial study of Qumran. The goals of the study were to investigate the structural orientations of the settlement, which would indicate if a central planning existed. The objective of the field survey was to produce an initial reproduction of the topographic development of the site and its immediate surroundings. To achieve this old maps and aerial images were used. A tacheometric total station (EDM) was used to record and collect a set of coordinates from relevant surfaces and features in the area on the ground. The surveying and documentation also used traditional measurement techniques and photographic documentation. The use and chronology of Qumran has not been fully understood because the topographic development and the planning have remained unexplored. Our most important conclusion was that there was a central planning where axial orientations and astronomy played a central role in the shaping of the settlement and cemetery. From the new topographic and hydrological studies, we know that the site apparently was submerged under the Dead Sea in the 30s B.C., which interrupted the habitation
