University Students Use Screening Eagle’s Ground Penetrating Radar in Search for Missing Historic Sculptures

Screening Eagle’s ground penetrating radar (GPR), the Proceq GP8000, has recently been used by students of the master’s degree in Architectural Heritage and the degree in Mineral Resources and Energy Engineering to carry out unique field practices in search for lost sculptures that went missing during the Spanish civil war.

The research took place in the church of the Sacred Heart of Jesus (popularly known as Iglesia de San Diego) in Cartagena, Spain, in collaboration with professors Pedro Martínez Pagán and Marcos Martínez Segura from GEODE Applied Geophysics´ group at the Polytechnic University of Cartagena (UPCT) and historian Miguel Ángel Ríos Sanmartín, at the request of the parish priest Pascual Saorín. The project coincided with a conference, 'Cloud-based digital ecosystem for subsurface mapping using georadar technology (GPR)', given at the UPCT by Dr. Alex Novo, Head of GPR applications at Screening Eagle. This gave the team the opportunity to use the latest GPR technology in their search.

With the Proceq GP8000 GPR, the students were able to easily and non-invasively scan the walls of the church, documenting the findings with 3D visualizations. The team did not find the missing sculptural works that went missing over 8 decades ago. However, they did find spaces inside constructive elements, where the missing sculptures could have once been hidden, according to Josefina García León and Pedro-E. Collado Espejo, professors from the Thermal Analysis and Geomatic research group.

The GP8000 also confirmed presence of a double wall, but the professors concluded that the elements detected inside did not correspond to the missing sculptures. The stepped frequency continuous wave (SFCW) GPR like the GP8000 is ideal for this type of project which requires respect of the architectural heritage whilst detecting and mapping what’s hidden beneath the surface.

This is not the first time Screening Eagle Technologies have been used in historic and archaeological projects. See how they were used in this condition assessment of the tallest Cathedral in Croatia and the search for King Tutankhamun’s burial chambers, as well as to locate the remains of Fort Visalia.