Operative action for the conservation of the Archaeological Park of Chan Chan

In close cooperation with the Instituto Nacional de Cultura - La Libertad, (INCLL, Trujillo, Peru) and with the International Centre of Conservation, Rome (ICCROM, Rome, Italy), and in accordance with the guidelines supplied by the "Plan Maestro de Conservación y Manejo del Complejo Arqueológico Chan Chan", an intervention strategy was worked out by MIPE (Italian Mission to Perù). Using modern topographic procedures and information technologies (GIS - Geographic Information System), should allow to face, step by step, the study, the conservation and the fruition of an Archaeological Area of such dimensions. The project's main goal is to create, on an illustrative case study of Chan Chan's architecture (Palacio Rivero which extends on a surface of 70,000 sq metres), an operative model on which to experiment the execution and relevant computerization of all documentation, research and intervention phases and their interrelation. The first phase of the project provided for the realization of a survey of the palace which would supply a documentary evidence of the real conditions of the ruins. The survey was carried out with an Electronic Total Station (still clearly locatable structures), with GPS (contour lines of structures not clearly readable because of decay processes) and photogrammetry (the Funerary Platform of the sovereign damaged by centuries of illegal diggings). The representation of the spaces on a contour lines basis and the additional underlining of the emerging structures by means of appropriate methods, such as the creation of a three-dimensional model of the terrain (Digital Terrain Model - DTM), made it possible to obtain a clear location of the buried brickworks that will guide with a higher precision both the delicate archaeological investigation on the adobe areas and the preservation and restoration interventions. Just comparing the aerial photo (1970) and the satellite photo (2004) of Palacio Rivero, it can easily be perceived the great damage suffered by Chan Chan in these last decades.