Microgravity and Ground‐penetrating Radar Investigations of Subsurface Features at the St Catherine's Monastery, Slovakia

Abstract

ABSTRACTThe ruins of the St Catherine's monastery complex, the largest sacral ruins in Slovakia, are an important example of Slovak cultural heritage. The Franciscan monastery was a famous site of religious significance due to the legends describing the apparitions of St Catherine. The preservation project of the monastery remains started in 1994. As a part of this project, complex historical, archaeological, anthropological and geophysical research has been conducted at the site since 1997. Microgravity and ground‐penetrating radar (GPR) surveys were carried out in the nave of the former church in order to reveal the position of three aristocratic crypts that served as burial places for the members or higher society in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. In the microgravity data processing, a novel method for the calculation of the building correction was employed, where the gravitational effect of the church is calculated using a polyhedral model of the building created from photographs with a special photogrammetric software. Several gravity anomalies were found in the residual Bouguer anomaly map. Semi‐automated interpretation techniques including the Euler deconvolution and harmonic inversion have been used to investigate the depth and size of anomalous sources. Results from 36 GPR profiles obtained by a 400 MHz antenna were visualized in the form of horizontal time‐slices and vertical time‐sections. These images indicate anomalous reflections suggesting potential archaeological targets. Integrated interpretation of results from both geophysical methods has confirmed the presence of a known aristocratic crypt excavated in 2001, as well as two other crypts predicted from historical archives. The combination of microgravity and GPR surveys has proved to be a very effective and non‐destructive tool for archaeological research. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.