| The Roman Empire is one of the greatest empires in human's history.With a total area of about 5 million square kilometers and extending into neighboring regions throughout Europe,the Middle East,East Asia and North Africa.In Tunisia during the Roman period(146 BCE to 435 CE),the South part was viewed as the symbol of arid agricultural development.This area was a part of a huge military defense system located along the desert border and was a land bridge to control the passage of the Saharan plain to plateaus to the north of the mountain range.The ancient Roman border military defense system mainly consists of three parts: military defense facilities subsystem,military supply subsystem and transportation subsystem.Ancient Rome was committed to building military defense facilities,including side walls,fortresses and observation towers,as well as agricultural production facilities and conditions adapted to arid and semi-arid conditions to provide military life,including agricultural irrigation systems and oasis maintenance facilities.In order to ensure the immediate mobilization of the army,roads and water traffic maintenance were built.The border wall system in Tunisia's southern border area is the most impressive part of the Roman Empire's military defense system in terms of combating the drought environment and defending against intrusions from enemies from the south.The border military defense system is a key link of national security.This paper focuses on the border military defense system in the arid-semi-arid region of northern Sahara during the Roman period.The research involves the side walls and fortresses of military defense facilities,water supply(rivers,canals and canals)and food supply(agricultural irrigation and oasis)in the supply system,and settlement(towns).This study helps to understand how the Roman Empire controlled and managed the border areas under extreme environmental conditions,and to understand the close relationship between natural elements(rivers,oases and lakes)and artificial elements(sidewalls,fortresses,roads and towns).This paper shows the great advantages and potential of space information technology in archaeology.Because most of southern Tunisia belongs to desert areas,it is difficult to find archaeological relics in this rare area by traditional methods of ground archaeological investigation.Archaeological remote sensing provides a new perspective for the investigation,discovery,reconstruction and record of archaeological sites and cultural heritage at different scales.Through the comprehensive utilization of remote sensing,geographic information system,global satellite navigation system and other technical methods,combined with historical literature and map,ground survey and contemporary research results,the archaeological sites can be detected and analyzed.This research mainly includes two parts.The first part is about the constitution of Rome's military defense system and the determination and mapping of its border.The second part mainly studies the water supply system of ancient Rome,and cognizes how ancient Rome controlled and managed the border areas under extreme environmental conditions.Firstly,the ancient military of Rome in ancient Tunisia was studied for the Defense Subsystem.It includes the third and fourth chapters.Based on historical records,images processing and interpretation of satellite remote sensing,GIS prospection and field surveys we reconstruct the military Roman defense.Based on the rough position information derived from the historical materials,using GIS buffer analysis and overlay analysis,potential regions are found from remote sensing images.The prospective sub-area was mapped from high resolution images based on the results of the previous steps,and suspected sites were interrupted,confirmed and integrated with the completed GNSS–based archeological surveys.Pixel-based analysis joint with spatial analysis(LISA approach)methods can locate these areas using 1 m resolution world-view imagery,while the unsupervised classification reflected a unique spectral anomaly reflecting the ecotone between arid steppe and bare,un-vegetated ground.The use of LISA classification strongly improved the unsupervised classification and the identification of archaeological features.The research results make the identification,location and mapping of various types of new archaeological sites in the study area more detailed.Secondly,the water supply system in Rome was researched.It covers Chapter V.Archaeological studies were carried out with the Wadi-El-Melah Valley(WMV)of the ancient Rome at the landscape scale.This study describes the combination of Geo Eye-1 and ZY-3 satellite remote sensing data to uncover an ancient irrigated canal and conduct channels located in a Gafsa oasis agricultural landscape.The methodological approach herein adopted for the identification of features of interest has been mainly based on the use of algorithms for texture analysis to enhance,speed,and improve the reorganization of potential anomalies and patterns related to the buried archaeological remains.Texture analysis has been performed using Occurrence(and co-occurrence)Measures tabulated in a matrix,and specific statistical measures computed from this matrix to produce the filtered value for the target cell.Occurrence(co-occurrence)measures use the number of occurrences(co-occurrence)of each gray level within the processing window for the texture calculations using the amount in brightness values,along with spatial scale and pattern of variation in brightness values.The texture categories herein used are based on distinguishing feature obtained from the Mean,which is the local mean value of the processing window.Based on the analysis,the research results of the thesis can summarize the following points:1.Based on the archaeological remote sensing method,ten archaeological remains of ancient Rome were discovered in southern Tunisia.Based on more than two years of research and investigation work,we have newly discovered ten ancient Roman sites in southern Tunisia.These sites include three sections of limes,two forts,three tanks and tomb.2.The components and characteristics of the ancient Roman borders(the Tunisian section)were determined.The results of this study provide new information for the identification,orientation,components and characteristics of the ancient Roman borders in southern Tunisia.3.Exploration the overall spatial analysis of the Wadi-El-Melah Valley(WMV)landscape of Rome in southern Tunisia.The research results show that the WMV landscape reveals the basic organizational of the water supply system in the arid regions of ancient Rome,and provides a solid foundation for understanding the military,cultural,economic value of the Roman military defense system.4.It reveals the relationship between military defense facilities and supply facilities.The supply system provides an important logistical support for the military defense system of the Roma limes.It not only provides the food and drinking water for the army,but also helps ancient Rome to form a great advantage over the hostile forces in the south in agricultural production,thus maintaining the long-term presence and border stability of the military forces of ancient Rome.Overall,these archaeological remains constitute a chain of evidence reflecting the military defense system in the southern Roman Empire.They have important scientific significance for studying the development of the Roman military strategy and environmental evolution,as well as the discovery and identification of ancient Roman archaeological sites and the military defense system.The digital reconstruction provides new information.The military defense system of ancient Rome witnessed the relationship between ancient Rome and its neighboring countries and tribes before 2000,and revealed the interaction between man and the natural environment.It has important scientific research and historical and cultural value.The discovery and protection of these precious heritages not only help protect them from natural and man-made destruction,but also provide a scientific basis for studying how to use these cultural heritages to promote the development of Tunisian culture and tourism economy.As well as,the results are providing new information,also,for the researchers who have interest to study the Romans borders history. |
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