Hatra Unveiled New Insights into Iraq's Ancient City: Orthophotos, DSMs, ground photos and interpretation files

The data has been gathered within a collaborative project between Iraq and Italy aimed to evaluate and monitor the damage and destruction of various sensitive archaeological sites in northern Iraq, utilizing satellite-based remote sensing and field surveys. Since February 2020, our efforts have focused on Hatra, where we initiated our first field mission for damage assessment, followed by further fieldwork in 2021 and 2023. The primary goal of this initiative is to assist Iraq’s State Board of Antiquities and Heritage (SBAH) in re-establishing effective control over the archaeological site and enhancing cultural heritage accessibility for the local community. Our methodology has been through a combination of remote sensing, restoration, capacity building (training Iraqi archaeologists), and the development of a comprehensive site management plan. Our assessment involved a systematic study of the city including a comprehensive collection of previous surveys and excavations, the collection of historical aerial photography and satellite imagery. Through fieldwork we collected high-resolution drone-based aerial photography of the entire city (February 2020 and October 2021) and created a high-resolution 3D model of the tèmenos through fieldwork, laserscaning and photogrammetry. All the geographic information is stored and managed in GIS and published open data on Zenodo. Our research has revealed significant new information that has provided for new insights into the dynamics of the city's development, particularly concerning the central area, often referred to as the tèmenos. Data are organized as follow: 1 - Remote sensing datasets mosaics of historical aerail photography (1928) collected by O.G.S.Crawford mosaics of historical aerail photography (1938) collected by A. Stein mosaics of drone aerail photography and DSM (winter 2020) collected within the collaborative project between Iraq and Italy mosaics of drone aerail photography and DSM (late summer 2021) collected within the collaborative project between Iraq and Italy 2 - GNSS Landmark Hatra 20213 - Fieldwork: Ground-based photography with GNSS positioning4 - Archaeological interpretation: vector data of the archaeological features