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Why can't they just use ground penetrating radar to determine the existence of other chambers?
by helper 11y ago
Why can't they just use ground penetrating radar to determine the existence of other chambers?
- knodi123 11y agoThat's a good question. I was wondering the same thing myself. Best guess based on preliminary googling is "The principal disadvantage of GPR is that it is severely limited by less-than-ideal environmental conditions. Fine-grained sediments (clays and silts) are often problematic because their high electrical conductivity causes loss of signal strength; rocky or heterogeneous sediments scatter the GPR signal, weakening the useful signal while increasing extraneous noise."
- smackfu 11y agoAlso, as I understand it, it's not particularly easy to interpret the results beyond "there is something there."
- gwern 11y agoThey will be. "Whether there are rooms behind the walls is one question, and should be fairly easy to resolve, with ground-penetrating radar equipment. Indeed, given the evidence Reeves has assembled, it would be madness for the Egyptian antiquities authorities to not at least check. (On Friday, the Luxor Times reported, the Minister of Antiquities said that the ministry would conduct studies to examine the theory.)" Really the question is why they haven't before. My guess is that it's something prosaic like Tut's tomb having been discovered long before ground-penetrating radar became available and up to this point, no one had any particular reason to get an expensive radar rig and scan through the tomb (archaeological budgets always being limited and higher priority scans being in plentiful supply).
- locacorten 11y agoGround penetrating radar is a technology that doesn't work very well apparently. http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2015/08/03/underworld-monte-reel http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2015/08/03/underworld-mont...