Ground-penetrating radar inspection of subsurface historical structures at the baptism (El-Maghtas) site, Jordan

Abdel-Rahman Abueladas,Emad Akawwi

doi:10.5194/gi-9-491-2020

Abstract

Abstract. The baptism (El-Maghtas) site is located to the north of the Dead Sea on the eastern bank of the Jordan River. Previous archeological excavations in the surrounding area have uncovered artifacts that include the location that was home to “John the Baptist”, who lived and preached in the early 1st Century AD and is known for baptizing Jesus. Archeological excavations have revealed walls, antiquities, and ancient water systems that include conduits, pools, and ancient pottery pipes. A ground-penetrating radar (GPR) survey was carried out at select locations along parallel profiles using a subsurface interface radar system (Geophysical Survey Systems Inc. SIRvoyer-20) with 400 MHz or 900 MHz mono-static shielded antennas in order to locate archeological materials at shallow depths. The GPR profiles revealed multiple subsurface anomalies across the study area. At the John the Baptist Church site a buried wall was detected along the profiles, and at the pool site the survey delineated several buried channels. GPR data also confirmed the extension of an ancient pottery pipe at the Elijah's Hill site through the production of a clear diffraction hyperbola anomaly related to the ancient pottery pipe that could be discriminated from the 2D profiles. The GPR data were displaced using 3D imaging to define the horizontal and vertical extent of the pipe.

Highlights

Locating an archeological site that contains buried artifacts and antiquities has traditionally involved methods such as coring, foretelling, and shovel testing, which are timeconsuming and labor-intensive procedures that can lead to significant waste of time and expense
Ground-penetrating radar (GPR) is a unique high-resolution tool that offers a solution to these problems (Vaughan, 1986)
The advantage of using EM waves with relatively short wavelengths lies in the ability to map small objects at shallow depth

Summary

Introduction

Locating an archeological site that contains buried artifacts and antiquities has traditionally involved methods such as coring, foretelling, and shovel testing, which are timeconsuming and labor-intensive procedures that can lead to significant waste of time and expense. The advantage of using EM waves with relatively short wavelengths lies in the ability to map small objects at shallow depth. This GPS methodology has been successfully utilized to locate antiquities in urban and arid settings (Vaughan, 1986; Sternberg and McGill, 1995; Cacione et al, 1996; Basile et al, 2000; Ronen et al, 2018) and has proven to be an efficient method for identifying areas with the highest potential for successful excavation (Cacione, 1996)

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