Digital Approach to Documenting Cultural Heritage Dynamics in Hasankeyf

Abstract

The history of humanity has a rich and diverse history with numerous civilizations and cultures. Cultural heritage sites preserve this heritage as an urban memory that can be passed on to future generations. However, rapidly increasing urban development, unpredictable natural disasters and complex socio-political dynamics are serious risks that threaten the sustainability of these heritage assets. Hasankeyf, with its thousands of years of history and hundreds of archaeological sites, has been one of the cultural treasures under risk. The major change in the city due to the Ilısu Dam project has aroused widespread repercussions at the international level and it has reminded that the preservation of cultural assets should include not only tangible assets, but also historical memory and knowledge. Therefore, documenting and archiving historical and cultural assets in detail is crucial before their permanent transformations. In this study, photogrammetric models of Hasankeyf were created with Metashape software using old drone images. Then, a photogrammetric model of the area was created using the latest drone images in order to make a process evaluation. Then, the transformation of Hasankeyf was examined through the models obtained and the transformation was visualized. The interaction between cultural heritage and technology has gained great importance in preservation studies in the digital age of rapidly developing technology. This study highlights the possibilities that digital technologies can present in the preservation of cultural heritage and demonstrates the increasing necessity of documenting historical values. It also provides a framework for documentation of similar historical heritages.