The Implementation of Shallow Geophysical Survey for Detection of Some Buried Archaeological Structures in Aswan City, Egypt

Aswan is one of Egypt’s most attractive cities, with numerous of historical monuments. The current work in the Aghakhan archaeological site, is primarily focused on the acquisition, processing, and interpretation of the obtained geophysical data, for delineating any possible buried archaeological relics or tombs. For achieving this goal, Ground Penetrating Radar (GPR) and Multichannel Analysis of Surface Wave (MASW) have been applied with minimal time, effort, and expense. First of all, GPR measurements were conducted over the archaeological sites with 26 profiles running from south to north and 16 profiles extend from west to east direction with profiles interval 2 m. This study provides a broad overview of the subsurface archaeological features. In additions, GPR data in the form of time-slice maps reveal several notable anomalies buried in Aghakhan site. Sequentially, to validate the results, the Multichannel Analysis of Surface Wave (MASW) technique is applied; eight profiles were conducted in the same location of the GPR’s profiles. Indeed, the integration and comparison between the GPR’s and MASW’s profiles is commonly utilized to complete the image, and it revealed successfully a range of probable archaeological features and structures buried at a depth of around 2–3 m, which may be interpreted as tombs and ancient structure walls.