February 2023 Türkiye Earthquakes — Assessing impact on one of the world's richest cultural heritage regions using satellite imagery, InSAR displacement maps, and volunteer data.
The catastrophic Kahramanmaraş earthquakes of February 6, 2023 (Mw 7.8 and Mw 7.5) struck one of the most archaeologically and culturally significant regions in the world — a landscape shaped by more than 10,000 years of continuous human civilisation.
This project systematically documents the impact of the February 2023 earthquakes on cultural heritage assets across eleven provinces in south-eastern Türkiye. Combining open satellite data, volunteer-collected field observations, and state damage records, we built a geodatabase of 1,591 heritage sites spanning prehistoric mounds to Ottoman mosques.
Each site is characterised by location, typology, historical period, and multi-source damage indicators — including InSAR-derived displacement fields from Sentinel-1 and TerraSAR-X imagery, NASA/ESA displacement maps, and ARIA Damage Proxy Maps produced by NASA-JPL/Caltech. Damage estimates are cross-validated against InSAR displacement measurements and volunteer field observations.
The goal is to provide researchers, conservators, and heritage authorities with a spatially explicit, open evidence base for prioritising rescue and restoration efforts in the earthquake-affected region.
Two major earthquakes — Mw 7.8 and Mw 7.5 — struck Kahramanmaraş Province on 6 February 2023, causing widespread destruction across the region.
Gaziantep, Hatay, Adıyaman, Malatya, Kahramanmaraş, Diyarbakır, Şanlıurfa, Kilis, Osmaniye, Adana, and Elazığ provinces.
Sentinel-1 InSAR (LiCSAR), TerraSAR-X & CosmoSkyMed & GaoFen-3 visual interpretation, and NASA-JPL ARIA EW/NS displacement & Damage Proxy Maps.
Volunteers from multiple disciplines contributed field data collection, geocoding, and quality control of heritage site records.
The earthquake-affected zone encompasses landscapes where human civilisation has flourished continuously for over 12,000 years.
Lower Palaeolithic bifaces from Dülük (Gaziantep) mark one of the earliest human presence routes from Africa. The region is home to the world's first known monumental architecture — Göbekli Tepe and Karahan Tepe (~BC 9600) — and is the origin zone of wheat domestication and animal husbandry.
Bronze and Iron Age state centres flourished along the Euphrates, Tigris, and Orontes basins. This was the core region of Neo-Hittite city-states. Arslantepe (Malatya) preserves a Bronze Age temple, while Karatepe-Aslantaş (Adana) contains rare Neo-Hittite reliefs.
A vital commercial route in Antiquity, the region was home to the Hellenistic kingdom of Commagene and the spectacular royal tomb complex at Mt. Nemrut. Roman era settlements produced world-class art, including the famous Gypsy Girl mosaic at Zeugma, Gaziantep.
One of the most important localities for early Christianity — Apostles Peter, John, and Paul all travelled in the region. The area also preserves major centres of multi-faith heritage: Orthodox, Catholic, and Protestant churches alongside Armenian, Syriac, Jewish, Kurdish, Arab, and Alawite communities.
A rich concentration of public monuments including mosques, caravanserais, baths (hammams), madrasas, and bridges. Highlights include the Behram Paşa Mosque by Mimar Sinan in Diyarbakır and Habibi Neccar Mosque in Antakya — claimed to be the oldest mosque in Türkiye.
Historically significant sites from the Hatay Republic and early Turkish Republic period, including the world's first illuminated street — Antakya Kurtuluş Street (BC 50) — and the former Assembly Building of Antakya, which served as a cinema and cultural centre.
Four UNESCO World Heritage Sites lie within or adjacent to the most severely affected provinces, each representing irreplaceable milestones in human history.
A 5,000-year-old monumental complex preserving one of the earliest known state societies and Bronze Age temple areas.
A 5.8 km basalt city wall enclosing 2,000 years of urban continuity alongside fertile riparian gardens.
The world's oldest known monumental structure (~BC 9600), rewriting understanding of early human society and organised religion.
The 1st century BCE funerary sanctuary of King Antiochus I of Commagene, featuring colossal statues at 2,134 m altitude.
The project integrates spaceborne, airborne, and crowd-sourced data streams to produce a comprehensive, multi-indicator damage assessment for each heritage site.
Every site is recorded with its name, historical period, typology, province and district, along with four independent damage indicators.
Damage categories are derived from ARIA Damage Proxy Map colour codes, cross-validated against InSAR-derived displacement values (north-south, east-west, and line-of-sight) and field damage reports.
This project is the result of collaboration between two universities and the dedication of dozens of volunteer students who contributed to data collection and processing.
Ege University
Department of Archaeology
İzmir, Türkiye
Akdeniz University
Space Science and Technologies
Antalya, Türkiye
To the colleagues and institutions whose expertise, access, and openness made this multi-source assessment possible.
Peer-reviewed outputs and conference archives produced from the project dataset.