Archaeological Study on Qiemo Ancient City Using SAR Remote Sensing Data

Abstract:
Qiemo ancient city is a mysterious place and it had disappeared when Monk Xuan Zang in the Tang dynasty passed through. Nevertheless,no one can find it so far. In this study, owing to its penetration capability in the desert area, ALOS PALSAR and SIR-C SAR data were collected to explore the location of Qiemo ancient city. Based on the geographical coordinates of the suspicious area extracted on the SAR images, two field investigations were conducted in April of 2010. And there were some important discoveries during the field investigation. Combined with the laboratory measurements, it is found that the suspicious area on the SAR images is likely to be one of the stable water head site for human survival of the Qiemo ancient city, the result significantly narrows the scope to explore the ruins of the ancient city.