Ground Penetrating Radar investigation at Roman Villas of Sabina Tiberina: the case of the villas of Montebuono and Cottanello (Rieti, Italy)

The development of geophysical exploration and techniques have proven to be of great help in identifying and classifying buried surfaces and for planning future excavation strategies. The purpose of this work is to detect the presence of buried structures (walls, floors, etc.) in unexplored areas of the Villa of St. Pietro ad Muricentum (Montebuono, Italy) and the Villa of Collesecco (Cottanello, Italy). Both areas were investigated with the Ground Penetrating Radar (GPR). The preliminary results show anomalies a few meters deep attributable to buried archaeological structures. These anomalies seem to be attributable, due to their shape and dimensions, to the presence of wall structures. Moreover, the maps obtained from the planimetric representation (time slices) of the Georadar reflections made it possible to follow the development, as the depth increased, of these structures and to reconstruct their reciprocal geometric correlation. This provides an overall view of the structures under investigation and provide useful guidance to archaeologists for the planning of excavation investigations.