ABSTRACT
The current paper describes the conduct and the results of the innovative (for the time of the survey) geophysical investigations carried out in Hamza Bey Mosque (cine Alkazar) in Venizelou station at Thessaloniki. The assessment of the geological structure and the detection of buried antiquities under the monument were accomplished by conventional GPR and ERT techniques and have been reported elsewhere. A fully 3-D survey is presented here. Further, since the investigations aimed also to precisely determine the depth of the foundations of the monument, innovative crosshole ERT was employed to accomplish this task.
The use of geophysics to assess the burial depth of the foundations of buildings is a very difficult task because operating directly over the ground surface is impossible. Further, the manmade noise comprises an additional problem. These are the reasons led to a combination of conventional methods and a cross hole one. Thus, the investigations had a certain degree of innovation. During these investigations we introduced new surveying techniques, specific ways of data treatment and modifications to the mathematical inversion schemes. Practical and theoretical problems had to be faced which were addressed by the collaboration of all involved groups.
