Archeoseismology and the Lost Villages in Northern Syria, the Impact of Large Earthquakes on Cultural Heritage

Archeoseismology and historical seismology are powerful tools to study earthquake damage and evaluate its impact to cultural sites. We present results of archeoseismic studies of the Lost Cities located nearby the northern segments of the Dead Sea Fault (DSF) in Syria, in the frame of the EC-Funded APAME Project (Archeo-PAleoseismology for the protection of cultural sites in the Middle East). Field investigations and description of the Lost Cities as archeological sites affected by large historical earthquakes are documented and provide consistent typology of earthquake damage. Further archeoseismic investigations were conducted in the lost village of Deir Dahess, and the city of Qalaât Samaan show displaced arches with shifted keystones, waved and collapsed walls, buried artefacts, turned columns and horizontal shifting of building stones. Detailed investigations are supplemented with precise C14 dating in all sites along the DSF and provide the age of past earthquakes that affected the two localities. The fallen buildings of Deir Dahess reveal two main dates of earthquake destruction in AD 427–602 and AD 1426–1486, the earlier is correlated with the AD 526 destructive earthquake (M 6.5) and the latter coincide with the 1408 earthquake (M 7.4), both reported in the seismicity catalogue. The detailed archeoseismic studies, coupled with historical data along the DSF document the effect of past earthquakes on buildings and show the long-term faulting behaviour associated with clustering of large seismic events in the antiquity and Medieval periods. Earthquake sequences in northern Syria and their return period associated to the collapse of monuments and historical buildings constitute the basis for a realistic seismic hazard assessment. Archeoseismology contributes to the protection of cultural heritage and social development through the careful study of past earthquake damage.