Archaeological Application of resistivity method on volcanic area at Liyangan

Site, Temanggung
Nurdien Ilham*, Putra Raditya*, Sapari Dwiyono*, Febri Sadono

Geophysical studies have been conducted with geoelectric methods in the area of ancient
settlement sites Liyangan that estimated to come from the 9th century which is located in,
Purbasari, Ngadirejo, Temanggung, Central Java. The site is buried in a pyroclastic material
with a thickness ranging from 4 - 7 meters. Measurements were performed with a dipole-
dipole configuration using electrodes spaced 2 meters and path length 32 meters.
Archaeological structures detected as resistivity anomaly 5 - 10 m with a depth of about 6
meters from the surface with dimension about 6 x 4 x 1 meters which is considered as one of
the foundation of the temple sites.

Keywords: geoelectricity, resistivity, volcanic region, temple, dipole

Liyangan site is the archaeological site consisting of temples and ancient settlement area were located
on the eastern slopes of Mt Sundoro found in Purbasari Village, Ngadirejo, located about 20 kilometers
northwest of the city of Temanggung, Central Java. Based on previous investigations conducted around
the Mt. Sundoro is precisely in Liyangan Site found relics of the temple from ancient Mataram
Kingdom. Unlike other temples found buried in Yogyakarta and surrounding areas, were buried by
volcanic material in the form of "lahar", Liangan temple was buried under a volcanic material in the
form of "awanpanas".

Objective

This study was conducted to identify the possible existence of an ancient temple or structure that is still
buried around the site has been excavated and to determine the sediment thickness and stratigraphy
in the study area.

Methods

Geophysical methods used in the study is the geoelectric method. Geoelectric is a geophysical method
that studies the properties of electricity in the earth and how to detect it on the surface of the earth. In
measurements using geoelectric method, electric current injected into the earth through two current
electrodes, then the potential difference that occurs is measured through two potential electrodes.
From the results of the current and potential difference measurements for each different electrode
spacing variations obtained resistivity values of each layer below the measuring point (sounding point).
In this study, the electrode configuration used is a dipole-dipole configuration with a = 1 n = 13 meters
and 30 meters path length measurement.