High-Resolution Integrated GPR Surveys in the urban Archaeological Sites. The cases of Palatino Hill and St John Lateran Basilica (Roma, Italy)

To enhance the knowledge of the subsoil of some portion of the Palatino Hill (Rome), and to locate the unknown buried structures below the actual studied levels, a scientific collaboration between La Sapienza University of Roma (Department of Archaeology), the Soprintendenza Archeologica di Roma and the Institute of Technologies Applied to Cultural Heritage (ITABC-CNR) has been developed, starting from 2001 and it is still in progress. Palatino Hill is characterised by a sequence of complex buildings, related to its history, from the foundation to the VIII century a.C. In this complex site, taking into account the results of previous surveys a new series of GPR surveys employing different frequencies were carried out during the period September 2009 to October 2010, with the aim at first to verify the stability of excavated archaeological remains locating the presence of shallow cavities, and at second to reconstruct the overlapping of archaeological structures in some portion of the Palatino Hill. In St John Lateran Basilica (Rome) to locate the unknown archaeological structures below the actual studied levels, a scientific collaboration between Newcastle University (UK), the Dipartimento di Scienze dell'Antichità (Università di Firenze) and the Institute of Technologies Applied to Cultural Heritage (ITABC-C.N.R.) has been developed, starting from 2006 and it is still in progress.