A multi-method high-resolution geophysical survey in the Machado de Castro museum, central Portugal

Abstract

Restoration of historical buildings is a delicate operation as they are often built over more ancient and important structures. The Machado de Castro Museum, Coimbra, Central Portugal, has suffered several interventions in historical times and lies over the ancient Roman forum of Coimbra. This building went through a restoration project. These works were preceded by an extensive geophysical survey that aimed at investigating subsurface stratigraphy, including archeological remains, and the internal structure of the actual walls. Owing to the needs of the project, geophysical data interpretation required not only integration but also high resolution. The study consisted of data acquisition over perpendicular planes and different levels that required detailed survey planning and integration of data from different locations that complement images of the surveyed area. Therefore a multi-method, resistivity imaging and a 3D ground probing radar (GPR), high-resolution geophysical survey was done inside the museum. Herein, radargrams are compared with the revealed stratigraphy so that signatures are interpreted, characterized and assigned to archeological structures. Although resistivity and GPR have different resolution capabilities, their data are overlapped and compared, bearing in mind the specific characteristics of this survey. It was also possible to unravel the inner structure of the actual walls, to establish connections between walls, foundations and to find older remains with the combined use and spatial integration of the GPR and resistivity imaging data.