Abstract
Aïn Kerouach is one of the most important archaeological sites in the northern part of Morocco. The main buried archaeological ruins in this area were surveyed in 1977 using magnetic prospecting. This survey highlights the mean anomalies that are related to potteries ovens built to the Marinid dynasty that governed Morocco from the 13th to the 15th century. In order to find the maximum depth of the sources, we computed the enhanced downward continuation filter in order to highlight the magnetization contrasts in high detail, depending on the depth downward included in the computation. The main goal is providing a reliable mapping to observe the ovens in depth by shifting the data below the plane of measurement. The results showed an important depth variation of the main ovens given by the original magnetic map and revealed others. Indeed, the downward continuation process applied to analyze the magnetic data shows its efficiency to highlight the buried archaeological structures.
Highlights
Morocco is a country with very ancient origins
We have essentially focused on an archaeological site called “Aın Kerouach” situated at the borders of the Rif belt in the north of Morocco
The magnetic anomalies data over this archaeological site were firstly gridded by kriging to an interval of 0.45 m in both x and y directions
Summary
Morocco is a country with very ancient origins. The territory offers a huge cultural heritage called “Tourath” of high educational value that dates back to the ancient era of many empires and invaders groups. Specific studies on historical Morocco in the pre-Roman, Roman, and Islamic era were initiated since 1950 and continue today with several works [5,6,7,8] All these studies revealed that the Moroccan cultural heritage is spatially distributed in different regions. City of Meknes, Ksar of Ait-Ben-Haddou, Mogador, Medina of Fez, Medina of Marrakesh, Titawin, Portuguese City of Mazagan, and Historic City of Rabat) (Figure 1) These wonderful historical sites show the way early people lived their day-to-day lives in pre-Roman, Roman, and Islamic era. According to Hassar-Benslimane [9], the site was discovered in 1976 during a drilling groundwater activity by the residents of Maarif and Kerouach villages These activities revealed the presence of some architectural and decorative structures and highlighted the first remains of materials used for building (Figure 2(b)). Of ceramic pots, or metal slag, may give positive anomalies with amplitudes of about 10-100 nT; Pithoi, associated with ancient Greek sites, give positive anomalies of a greater intensity 50100 nT [14, 15]
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary Sign-in/Register to access full text options 
Free) 
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a call
