Applicability of ground penetrating radar on desert archaeolog ical sites: a case studyfrom the Saqqara necropolis in Egypt

This pa per pres ents the pre lim i nary re sults of ground pen e trat ing ra dar sound ing ap plied at the desert ar chae o log i cal site in Saqqara (Egypt). The sur vey was car ried out in 2012 within a pro ject re al ized by In sti tute of Ar chae ol ogy, Cardi nal Stefan Wyszyñski Uni ver sity in War saw and the Fac ulty of Ge ol ogy, Uni ver sity of War saw. One of the key aims of the re search was test ing the ap pli ca tion of ground pen e trat ing ra dar to non-in va sive sur veys of desert ar chae o log i calsites. Radargrams ob tained for area of so called the Dry Moat chan nel sur round ing the Step Pyr a mid com plex have shown the geo log i cal struc ture of its fill ing. It com prises among oth ers de bris-sand con glom er ate of diluval or i gin char ac ter ized by a sig nif i cant con tent of the clay frac tion and clay min er als. Such lithological con tent strongly at ten u -ate the prop a ga tion of EM waves, re strict ing the depth range of the GPR sur vey. The con ducted geo phys i cal prospection west to the Step Pyr a mid in Saqqara has con firmed the high ap pli ca bil ity of the GPR method in non-in va sive stud ies of vast ar chi tec tural struc tures, such as the mon u men tal ditch sur round ing the Step Pyr a mid known as the Dry Moat. It should sum ma rised that high hor i zon tal res o lu tion ob tained dur ing GPR survey is a re sult of lo cal geo log i cal struc ture of the searched area, i.e. strong lithological con trast of the sed i ments fill ing the Dry Moat, which, de pend ing on their min er al og i cal com po si tion.