Investigating and Mapping Abo Al-za’ar Archaeology Hill Using GPR Technique

Abstract

The Ground Penetrating Radar survey can increase the amount and quality of the information when applied to archaeological prospection. In comparison to other geophysical methods, the Ground Penetrating Radar method's effectiveness rests in its applicability to a wide variety of site variables as well as the complementary nature of the data. One more benefit of the use of Ground Penetrating Radar for this investigation is that an archaeological location is usually ‎shallow, which facilitates the Ground Penetrating Radar with an enhancement in the resolution achieved. An area with dimensions of 31×19 m dimensions was taken in cooperation with the Heritage and Antiquities Authority. This area was regularly divided into a group of lines in North-South and West-East, representing the radar device’s path. The Tall Abo_Al-Za’ar district was surveyed using Seventy-two parallel and two antennas, 450 and 750 MHz, used respectively, for each survey. The results of this research showed the presence of several zones, the first represented by the upper layer, which ranges from 0.5-1 m, which is the burial area, as is evident in the Ground Penetrating Radar Image, interspersed with broken parts of the materials from which the walls of the area made. The second zone is located directly below the burial layer, and it is clear that there are archaeological walls made of clay at different depths. The last zone, located below the depth between 4-5m, represents the water-saturated area, which decreased the specific resistance, which caused loud noises and the inability to know what was in this range. The 2D view of the Tall Abo_Al-Za’ar district shows that the archaeological anomalies are distributed randomly and with different widths, and it was not possible to know the thickness of the walls in the area due to the high humidity