Examples of application of electrical tomographies and radar profiling to cultural heritage

Abstract

We present the results of an integrated application of the self-potential and resistivity methods to the recognition of buried remains in the archaeological site of Sumhuram (Khor-Rouri, Oman), and of the self-potential, resistivity and radar methods to the assessment of the state of conservation of the Aksum obelisk (Rome, Italy). A tomographic approach based on the concept of anomaly source occurrence probability was used for the analysis of the self-potential and resistivity data. Tomographic imaging provided reliable space patterns of the most probable specific target boundaries and notably improved the information quality of each single geophysical method.

Keywords

• applied geophysics
• cultural heritage
• electrical tomography
• radar profiling