Richard A. Freund

Nazareth Excavations Project: A GPR Perspective

High-resolution ground penetrating radar (GPR) surveys were carried out to image any archaeological features that may be located beneath the present floor of the Cactus House and several adjacent sites, Nazareth, Israel. The Cactus House occupies a portion of a much larger structure located in close proximity to Mary’s Well and the Greek Orthodox Church of the Annunciation. Excavations in the basement of Cactus revealed a portion of a hypocaust and furnace of a bath house. Radiocarbon results date the present bath house (in the basement of the store), excavated by the owners, to the Crusader period. The lower yet-to-be excavated archaeological site is hypothesized to be a Roman bath house which would have been where Jesus and his family would have bathed. The objective of the geophysical surveys was to gather, in a non-intrusive and non-destructive manner, as much information as possible about underlying features of the excavated portion of the bath house as well as surrounding locations. GPR data was collected in 3 localities within the Cactus House and 3 sites adjacent and behind the House. The data was collected using a pulseEKKO 1000 GPR system (225 & 450 MHz antennae; 200 V transmitter). Step sizes ranged from 0.05 m to 0.1 m. To aid in interpretation, three dimensional (3D) cubes were assembled from a series of identical length 2D GPR profiles running parallel to each other along an x-y grid system. The 3D cubes provide a unique perspective of the subsurface layers that will aid in locating sites for excavation. The application of radar stratigraphic analysis on the collected data provided the framework from which to investigate both lateral and vertical geometry of any potentially buried archaeological features. The resulting images from these geophysical surveys show that various anomalies exist in the subsurface and may indicate archaeological features exist below the present floors. For example, the upper bath house may have been built upon an earlier bath house that more closely aligns with the water system located and excavated at the adjacent Marys Well site. Several test probes and samples for radiocarbon dating are planned to be undertaken based upon the results from these geophysical surveys.

Return to the Cave of Letters, Israel: a GPR archaeological expedition

The interpretation and reconstruction of subsurface environments is an important task continually facing archaeologists. Of the various geophysical techniques employed in such work, GPR is increasingly being used to image and assess archaeological sites in a noninvasive manner. The Cave of Letters located in the Judean Desert of Israel provided the first site to successfully conduct a GPR experiment inside a cave environment. Upon entry to the Cave (Chamber B) a series of experimental grid lines were chosen to test a range of frequencies (100 - 450 MHz). The GPR results, with depths ranging from 2 - 8 m, directed subsurface endoscopic viewing and initial archaeological probing. Even with minimal probing many significant artifacts were located.

Geophysical Exploration of the Former Extermination Center at Sobibór, Poland

The Sobibor Extermination Center was one of three such secret death centers constructed during World War II in eastern Poland by the Nazis. Unlike such well known camps as Auschwitz-Birkenau and Majdanek that were concentration camps, labour camps, internment camps, etc., the three extermination centers of Treblinka, Belzec, and Sobibor were constructed in1942 for the sole purpose of exterminating the Jewish population of Europe. After disembarking from the rail platform in Sobibor, the life expectancy of a person was then measured in hours. At Treblinka, 850,000 Jews were killed, with only about 40 surviving until the end of the war. At Belzec, 600,000 Jews were killed, with only two survivors.