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International Conference on GPR in Archaeology (Nara, February 2001)

High-resolution GPR surveys for the study and characterisation of Forum Novum site (Vescovio, Rieti - central Italy)

Salvatore Piro

Institute of Technologies Applied to Cultural Heritage (ITABC - CNR), P.O. Box 10 - 00016 Monterotondo Sc. Roma, Italy
E-Mail: Salvatore.Piro@mlib.cnr.it

Dean Goodman

Geophysical Archaeometry Laboratory, University of Miami Japan division, Otsubu 39-1, Japan

Yasushi Nishimura

NARA National Cultural Properties Research Institute, 9-1, 2-chome, Nijyocho, Nara-shi, 630-8577 Japan

Recent developments in 3D hig-resolution multi-image processing and contouring as opposite to destructive testing have greatly contributed to improve the quality of geophysical information in archaeological reconnaissance surveying.

Nowadays non-destructive ground-surface geophysical prospecting methods, which involve detailed physical and geometrical reconstruction of hidden ambient, are increasingly used for the investigation of archaeological sites.

Ground Penetrating Radar (GPR) offers very high resolution sounding capability with detection of features of the order of a few tens of millimetres thickness at ranges of several metres.

In this work, the results of a high-resolution GPR survey carried out in order to detect walls, floors and to estimate the extention of Forum Novum archaeological site (Vescovio, Rieti - Central Italy), are presented.

A high-resolution data acquisition method has been adopted with the aim to reconstructe a global vision of investigated area. The results of this study show that GPR is very effective in mapping wall-remains and floors of an archaeological structures. The locating, depth, size and general structure of the buried buildings were effectively estimated from non-destructive remote sensing with a ground-penetrating radar system. 

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