Feasibility study of archaeological structures scanning by muon tomography
- Laboratoire Astroparticule et Cosmologie (APC) - Université Paris 7. Paris (France)
- Laboratoire de Physique Corpusculaire (LPC) - Université Blaise Pascal. Clermont - Ferrand (France)
- Géosciences Rennes - Université de Rennes 1. Rennes (France)
- Institute de Physique Nucléaire de Lyon (IPNL) - Université de Lyon (UCBL). Lyon (France)
One of the main concerns in archaeology is to find of a method to study precisely archaeological structures in the least invasive way possible to avoid damage. The requirement of preserving the structures integrity prevents, in the case of pyramids or tumuli, the study of any internal structure (halls or tombs) which are not reachable by existing corridors. One non-invasive method is the muon tomography. By placing a detector which allows to register the muon direction after the structure, it is possible to have an idea of its composition based on the attenuation of the muon flux, which depends on the material length and density that muons have crossed. This technique, alone or together with other exploration techniques as seismic tomography or electrical resistivity tomography, can provide useful information about the internal structure of the archaeological form that can not be obtained by conventional archaeological methods. In this work, the time measurement necessary to obtain a significant result about the composition of an archaeological structure is estimated. To do that, a Monte Carlo simulation framework based on the MUSIC software, properly tuned for this study, has been developed. The particular case of the Kastas Amfipoli Macedonian tumulus has been considered to perform the simulations.
- OSTI ID:
- 22488734
- Journal Information:
- AIP Conference Proceedings, Vol. 1672, Issue 1; Conference: LRT 2015: 5. international workshop in low radioactivity techniques, Seattle, WA (United States), 18-20 Mar 2015; Other Information: (c) 2015 AIP Publishing LLC; Country of input: International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA); ISSN 0094-243X
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
Similar Records
Historical building monitoring by means of a cosmic ray tracking system
Historical Building Stability Monitoring by Means of a Cosmic Ray Tracking System