Imaging Buried Archaeological Features through Ground Penetrating Radar: The Case of the Ancient Saepinum (Campobasso, Italy)

Marilena Cozzolino,Paolo Mauriello,Vincenzo Gentile,Claudia Giordano

doi:10.3390/geosciences10060225

Abstract

The archaeological area of Saepinum is considered the symbol of the history of Roman civilization in Molise region (Italy). It was a Samnite commercial forum and service center, then it became a Roman municipium, and, later, it was transformed into a medieval and modern rural village. Although the archaeological excavations brought to light different important public buildings, such as the theater, the forum, the basilica, different temples, and the main streets, today, there is still much to discover and study inside the well-preserved city walls. For this purpose, a ground penetrating radar (GPR) survey was realized in the space between the theater and the decumanus, allowing imaging of a complex regular pattern of archaeological features belonging to thermal buildings still buried in the soil.

Highlights

The archaeological area of Saepinum (41◦ 250 56.9300 N, 14◦ 370 03.4000 E) is a plain center located at the base of the Matese Mountain that faces the Tammaro valley, in Molise Region in the northern zone of southern Italy [1] (Figure 1a)
B.C.) called Terravecchia di Sepino, which was conquered in 293 B.C. [2] during the third Samnite war [3,4]
The new center of Saepinum was built and the two road axes were incorporated in the city, becoming the decumanus (NW-SE main road) and the cardo (NNE-SSW main road) (Figure 1b,c)

Summary

Introduction

The archaeological area of Saepinum (41◦ 250 56.9300 N, 14◦ 370 03.4000 E) is a plain center located at the base of the Matese Mountain that faces the Tammaro valley, in Molise Region in the northern zone of southern Italy [1] (Figure 1a). Data acquisition was resolution carried out in size of themode investigation area the investigative purposes, so as to achieve the detailed five days during the morning trying to work in the same soil moisture conditions in order to avoid an most useful for data processing and their interpretation. As the data set was so large and, as a consequence, the the whole data set was used to extract horizontal slices relative to different time windows dielectric constant of the soil could be extremely variable, we avoided converting time to depth using equal to 4 ns with overlap. Very shallow, confined in the volume of soil included in the range 0.2–1.5 m This evaluation is in agreement with the archaeological data considering that the excavated structures in the area appeared in the soil at few decimeters from the surface

Discussion

Radargrams

4.4.Conclusions