Planning the Archaeological Park of Chan Chan (Peru) by means of satellite images, GIS and photogrammetry

Chan Chan (IX–XV sec. A.D.; UNESCO World Heritage List since 1986) is America's greatest pre-Columbian town built in adobe (14 km2) and represents the material and immaterial synthesis of 10,000 years of autonomous evolution of the pre-Columbian cultures in northern Peru. From 2001, the Missione Italiana in Peru (MIPE) is operating at Chan Chan carrying on a wide action of documentation, conservation and exploitation. The most important purpose of the work is represented by the restoration of Palacio Rivero, the smallest of the Chan Chan palaces, and by the protection of the site from the aggressive and uncontrolled growth of the near town of Trujillo through the creation of an Archaeological Park. The strategic objective of the work is to integrate all the actions related to the archaeological research, conservation and exploitation of the site with all the actions addressed to the promotion and the social development of its population. The extensive settlement of Chan Chan cannot be analyzed and studied without using great scale images as the high resolution ones from the Quickbird satellite, used for the quantitative measurement of the deterioration and the detailed analysis of the landscape. The image represents the cartographic base of the GIS called “The Archaeological Park of Chan Chan” planned as a means of management and valorization of the Archaeological Complex and of its territory. The final objective of such a system, that is going to be managed in a specific Documentation Centre, is the gradual creation of a multidisciplinary data archive that will allow the various research and conservation actions to be updated. The GIS will help to schedule and implement the improvement procedures, as well as to regulate the various economic activities related to the management of the complex (tourist flow, multimedia products, constraints and integration with the modern city). Finally, the restoration of Palacio Rivero, an example of Chan Chan palaces, represents an operating model allowing the execution and relative application of ICT to all the phases of documentation, research, and restoration. The geometrical survey of the palace was performed using different techniques such as Total Station, GPS, laser scanner, and aerial and ground photogrammetry.