Archive notice: This article was originally published on November 26, 2007. Links and embedded videos are preserved as part of the historical record.
A team of experts formed by the Gruppo Nazionale di Geofisica della Terra Solida http://www.cnr.it under the direction of Pietro L. Cosentino has discovered the remains of an Augustus temple buried beneath Tarragona Cathedral using an innovative tomography process. The structure dating from the Roman era has been analysed and reconstructed in three dimensions with the help of the geoelectric “Full 3D” method developed by Cosentino.
“A series of historical documents indicated that Tarragona Cathedral was built on the walls of an earlier structure,” explains the professor of applied geophysics at the University of Palermo. “Together with several Spanish colleagues under the direction of Prof. Albert Cascas, we fitted the church floor with a total of 1,280 electrodes in order to investigate the reactions to the current pulses applied at various points.”
In this way, 110,000 different pieces of information about the objects and materials lying underground could be determined. Evaluation of the data prepared using proprietary software showed that the temple walls had resistance values that differed greatly from the rest of the terrain. With the help of this non-invasive method, time-consuming or technically unfeasible excavations could therefore be dispensed with in future.
The Spanish port city of Tarragona had arisen on the ruins of the Roman city of Tarraco, which during the imperial era formed the most important support in the conquest of the territory and has since been placed under the protection of Unesco. Using Full 3D technolgy, the outlines of the temple could be reconstructed in three days, while conventional two-dimensional methods would have required two months. The results of the investigation are to be presented to the Spanish authorities at the end of January 2008.
Further Links:
- Gruppo Nazionale di Geofisica della Terra Solida
