Archaeological information retrieval from MIVIS hyperspectral airborne data over Selinunte

The airborne Daedalus AA5000 Multispectral Infrared and Visible Imaging Spectrometer (MIVIS), owned by CNR LARA (Laboratorio Aereo Ricerche Ambientali), is one of these instruments that has markedly increased and improved the information from surface terrain units related to ancient human witnesses. Preliminary results of the analysis of the MIVIS data collected on May 1996, at 7:15 a.m. and 12.30 p.m. local time and from an altitude of 1500 m (3 m/pixel ground resolution) over the Archaeological Park of Selinunte have been presented in the 1999. The hyperspectral reflected data were processed by applying the supervised SAM multispectral classification method, whose outstanding by-products were the so-called Rules Images, while thermal infrared channels were analysed by using Apparent Thermal Inertia images and emissivity calculation. These thematic maps, obtained from the simultaneous analysis of nearly all the 102 MIVIS bands, have been interpreted as if they were aerial photos and remarkable archaeological information, represented by the outline of street axes of the ancient urban system, has been retrieved. These data added new insight to and partially confirmed the ones derived, mainly on the Manuzza hill and the "Acropolis" area, from classical aero photos and field campaign, both archaeological and geophysical, investigations. These primary results have been, then, checked by improving the procedure of spectral analysis with the collection of rock and soil specimens, directly on the ground, and the laboratory measurement of their spectral behaviour, successively compared with that of the MIVIS data set. Moreover, to support the MIVIS data classification approach, both single MIVIS bands and recent classical aerophotos have been carefully examined to draw the urban network segments, there visible, with respect to the street axes extracted from the above mentioned Rules Images.