Application of electrical resistivity tomography (ERT) in archaeological investigation of Chengsijiazi Ancient City ruins

Abstract

The electrical resistivity tomography (ERT) has the characteristics of low cost, high efficiency, rich information, non-destructive exploration, and large detection depth. At present, it is being widely used in archaeological exploration. It can provide a more accurate result whether it is the preliminary survey delineation or the later detailed exploration. Chengsijiazi ancient city, located at the bank of Tao’er river, was built during the Liao and Jin dynasties. Except for the western wall destroyed by the river, the rest of the city walls were well preserved. The main target body of this survey is a part of wall foundation of an ancient building in the ancient city ruins. The ERT data are acquired along 55 survey lines and the horizontal differential field line method is introduced to interpret the inversion results of the measurement data. The horizontal differential field line method could more accurately describe the structure and boundary characteristics of the target body. The ancient building wall foundation is characterized by obvious high-gradient dense field line, so that we can accurately delineates the position of the wall base, which was excavated by archaeologists and has been verified.