Heritage Sustainability of the Territory: Photogrammetric Survey of the Castle of Beas de Segura (Jaén, Spain)

Abstract

Beas de Segura is an ancient village located in the valley of the Sierra de Segura, at the gateway to the Sierra de Cazorla, Segura y las Villas (Jaén, Spain). This territory has been inhabited by different cultures, from the Palaeolithic to the present day, giving rise to a complex urban fabric in which relevant architectural and archaeological elements still survive. The coexistence of these heritage structures with the inhabited domestic architecture has generated significant conflicts of coexistence, resulting in an accelerated process of physical and social deterioration of this increasingly impoverished area. Drawing, together with all the techniques that derive from it, is a necessary and precise source of knowledge and communication for understanding the territory, however complex it may be. This potential, applied to a heritage and social reality such as that of the Castle and Fortress of Beas de Segura (Jaén), allows for processes to be revealed, actions to be ordered, and interventions to be proposed. This article brings together the results of research carried out in this area of the Sierra de Segura, in which graphic expression, combined with the study of materials, has enabled us to identify original elements of the castle and medieval fortification. This system of knowledge discovery has been decisive in establishing a criterion for heritage intervention, seeking a sustainable balance between the development of life in this area of the city, the recovery of the collective memory of the surviving elements of the castle and fortress, and the conservation of the protected historical remains.