Revised: 1 December 2017 Accepted: 5 April 2018

DOI: 10.1002/arp.1702

RESEARCH ARTICLE

Preliminary results of an integrated archaeo‐geophysical survey

on the basis of ancient finds unearthed by an illegal excavation
at Kılıç Ören site (Isparta, Turkey)
Sedat Yilmaz1 | Erdinc Oksum1 | Olcay Cakmak2 | Onur Dogan3 | Erkan Tekelioğlu3

1
Department of Geophysics, Engineering
Faculty, Süleyman Demirel University, Isparta, Abstract
Turkey An archaeo‐geophysical study was performed at the Ören site (Kılıç village north of
2
Earthquake and Geotechnical Research
Isparta, Turkey) where an illegal excavation revealed a monumental relic which is
Centre, Süleyman Demirel University, Isparta,
Turkey thought to belong to the Roman period. Therefore, an area, which is about 0.2 ha in
3
Graduate School of Natural and Applied size around the illegal excavation location, has been investigated using electrical resis-
Sciences, Süleyman Demirel University,
Isparta, Turkey
tivity imaging, ground penetrating radar and magnetic methods to determine the pres-
Correspondence ence and extent of buried archaeological remains. The data sets were evaluated with
Sedat Yilmaz, Department of Geophysics, inversion, signal and image processing techniques. The integrated usage of the results
Engineering Faculty, Süleyman Demirel
University, 32260, Isparta, Turkey. revealed the shape, extent and the depth of buried archaeological remains, which
Email: sedatyilmaz@sdu.edu.tr have regular geometry in some locations of the investigated site. These results indi-
Funding information
cate the presence of regular archaeological features and architectural planning in
Süleyman Demirel University Research Fund,
Grant/Award Number: 4786‐YL1–16 the area.

KEY W ORDS

archaeo‐geophysics, electrical resistivity, ground‐penetrating radar, Isparta, Kılıç, magnetics

1 | I N T RO D U CT I O N
An archaeological excavation starting with poorly selected locations
can result in both losses of time and cost, as well as possible damage
to buried structures. Before an excavation, archaeological research
performed by using non‐destructive geophysical methods is the best
way to predict the location, size, shape and depth of buried ancient
remains. In general, the choice of suitable geophysical techniques in
archaeological site investigation is not simple due to the covering of
natural soils. Also, building techniques and materials and other proper-
ties are important factors. In this context, the integrated usage of dif-
ferent geophysical methods makes it possible to overcome this
problem and to verify the results. Ground penetrating radar (GPR),
magnetic and electrical resistivity imaging (ERI) techniques are widely
used in integrated applications of archaeological prospection
(Cardarelli & Filippo, 2009; Di Maio, La Manna, & Piegari, 2016;
Diamanti, Tsokas, Tsourlos, & Vafidis, 2005; Drahor, 2006; Drahor,
2011; Drahor, Berge, & Öztürk, 2011; Drahor, Berge, Öztürk, & Ortan,
2015; Kvamme, 2006; Leopold, Plöckl, Forstenaicher, & Völkel, 2010;
Nuzzo, Leucci, & Negri, 2009; Papadopoulos et al., 2012; Piro,
Mauriello, & Cammarano, 2000; Tong, Lee, Yeh, Hwang, & Chien,
2013; Vafidis et al., 2005; Zheng et al., 2013).
ERI is a geophysical technique which is based on measuring the
potential differences at the surface by applying an electric current to
the ground. The aim is to construct an electrical resistivity model of
the subsurface in two‐dimensional (2D) and three‐dimensional (3D)
methods. With the development of multi‐electrode data acquisition
systems and new imaging software, 2D and 3D resistivity surveying
has become more and more important for visualizing and interpreting
subsurface structures at various depths. Thus, in archaeological investi-
gations, ERI has become a frequently used method to investigate shal-
low buried structures (e.g. Berge & Drahor, 2011; Drahor, Kurtulmuş,
Berge, Hartmann, & Speidel, 2008a; Papadopoulos, Tsourlos, Tsokas,
& Sarris, 2006; Simyrdanis, Papadopoulos, & Cantoro, 2016; Tsokas,
Tsourlos, Stampolidis, Katsonopoulou, & Soter, 2009).
GPR is a non‐destructive geophysical method which is based on
high frequency (10–3000 MHz) electromagnetic wave propagation in
the subsurface. A GPR device consists of transmitter and receiver
antennas which are moved across the ground surface. The resolution
and penetration depth are related to the electromagnetic properties

Archaeological Prospection. 2018;1–11. wileyonlinelibrary.com/journal/arp Copyright © 2018 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. 1
2 YILMAZ
of the subsurface materials and the antenna frequencies. If higher fre-
quency antennas are used, then better resolution and lower penetration
depth are obtained (Davis & Annan, 1989). New developments in hard-
ware and data collection techniques as well as advanced data process-
ing software allow 3D GPR data collection. In archaeological surveys,
GPR use has become quite popular in recent years (e.g. Neubauer,
Hinterleitner, Seren, & Melichar, 2002; Leckebusch, 2003; Conyers,
2004; Seren, Eder‐Hinterleitner, Neubauer, & Groh, 2004; Rogers,
Leon, Fisher, Manning, & Sewell, 2012; Booth, Szpakowska, Pischikova,
& Griffin, 2015; Verdonck, Taelman, Vermeulen, & Docter, 2015).
Magnetic survey is one of the most effective and much‐used geo-
physical techniques in the investigation of archaeological sites. It has
provided valuable results in detecting man‐made archaeological inter-
ests such as kilns, pottery, burials, dwelling walls and floorings, which
have magnetic properties that are distinctly different from the soil in
which they are located (Aitken, 1974; Gibson, 1986; Clark, 1990;
Gaffney, Gater, Linford, Gaffney, & White, 2000; Drahor, Kurtulmus,
Berge, Hartmann, & Speidel, 2008b; Dirix et al., 2013; Stampolidis &
Tsokas, 2012). Although the buried archaeological features usually
give weak magnetic anomaly values, their measurements are made
with precision using modern magnetic devices (Piro, Sambuelli, Godio,
& Taormina, 2007).
An integrated geophysical survey was conducted at the Kılıç
Ören archaeological site in Isparta, Turkey (Figure 1(a)). An illegal
FIGURE 1 (a) Location of the study area at the Ören Site. (b) A view of ancient ruins after an illegal excavation [Colour figure can be viewed at
wileyonlinelibrary.com]
ET AL.
excavation at about 1.5 km north of the Kılıç village known as the
Ören site revealed an Ionic column, a frieze, a sima block with a
console and an inscription on an architectural fragment, even though
the place is considered a registered site (Figure 1(b)). However, there
is no further information whether the findings are in situ or
transported to their present position. High quality potsherds from
Hellenistic and Roman periods were also reported from this site
(Özsait, 2011). With these findings, a salvage excavation for investi-
gating the visible ruins was intended by the Directorate of the
Isparta Museum. Therefore, an integrated geophysical survey includ-
ing ERI, GPR and magnetic methods was carried out around the
revealed relic position seen in Figure 1(b). This article presents the
preliminary results of the archaeo‐geophysical survey at the Kılıç
Ören site. The data acquisition, processing and interpretation are
then presented and discussed.
2 | SURVEY LAYOUT AND PROCESSING
The geophysical exploration performed in the Ören site comprises an
area of approximately 0.2 ha. The survey aimed to determine the pres-
ence of archaeological structures surrounding the Hellenistic and
Roman finds reported by Özsait (2011), and to provide an important
data set for the future archaeological development. The geophysical
YILMAZ ET AL. 3

TABLE 1 Data collection, processing and presentation of integrated geophysical methods

Methods Instrument Data collection Processing Visualization

ERI GF ARES resistivitymeter Wenner–Schlumberger array
Unit electrode spacing:
1 m 20 lines into Sectors A and B
GPR Mala Pro‐Ex Ramac Antenna frequency: 500 MHz
system Time window: 80 ns
Time sampling interval: 0.25 ns
Trace increment: 5 cm
60 lines into Sectors A, B and C
Magnetics Scientrex SM‐5 magnetometer Unidirectional continuous log
46 lines into Sectors A, B and C
Res2Dinv software Coloured inverted resistivity
Robust inversion sections and depth slices
GPR‐Slice v7 Coloured time slices and
De‐wow and Bandpass filters volumetric presentation
Background removal
Automatic gain control
Low and high‐pass filtering Coloured magnetic images
Surface fitting
Pole reduction
Edge detection analysis

methods used are ERI, GPR and magnetics. Instrumentation, data col-
lection, processing and presentation of each geophysical method are
summarized in Table 1. The target area was divided into three
sectors (Sector A, B and C) of variable size including west, north and
east of the current illegal excavation (Figure 2). For a geo‐referenced
survey plan, the corner coordinates of these three sectors were pre‐
measured by a global positioning system (GPS) and then profiled at
intervals of 1 m (Figure 3). Because of the limitations on the surveying
permission and the usage of the technical equipment, the coverage by
each technique varies across the sectors (see Figure 2).
The ERI survey was carried out on a total of 20 profiles into two
sectors (Figure 2). Data were collected using a multi‐electrode resistiv-
ity system (GF Instruments, Brno, Czech Republic) using the Wenner–
Schlumberger array. The measured data were processed by the
inversion software Res2Dinv (Loke & Barker, 1996), which supplies
robust inversion and smoothness‐constrained least‐squares inversion.
These minimize the differences between the model response and the

FIGURE 2 The study area divided into three sectors of variable size FIGURE 3 A view from the field arrangement studies. (a) Global
for the integrated geophysical survey [Colour figure can be viewed at positioning system (GPS) measurements and (b) fixing of the
wileyonlinelibrary.com] surveying lines [Colour figure can be viewed at wileyonlinelibrary.com]
4 YILMAZ ET AL.

measured data; the robust inversion minimizes the absolute values of
differences, whereas the smoothness‐constrained inversion minimizes
the squares of the differences (Loke, Acworth, & Dahlin, 2003). In the
case of sharp boundaries in the model, the robust inversion produces
more accurate results than the smoothness‐constrained inversion
(Olayinka & Yaramanci, 2000). This inversion technique was used to
invert all ERI data collected in this study.
The GPR survey was carried out on a total of 60 profiles of vari-
able lengths in three sectors (Figure 2). Data were collected using a
500 MHz MALA Pro‐Ex RAMAC system. Stacking was applied for
reducing random noises. The trace spacing was 5 cm and each trace
had a time window of 80 ns and a sampling interval of 0.25 ns. The
GPR data only become useful when available in the understandable
image format (Daniels, Gunton, & Scott, 1988). The GPR profiles were
analysed by GPR‐Slice v7 imaging software package (Goodman & Piro,
2013). The main processing steps performed to enhance visualization
of reflections of archaeological interest are summarized as the follow-
ing: (1) Time‐zero – to compensate the temperature or consecutive
scans‐induced long‐term instrument drift, (2) De‐wow filtering – to
eliminate the low frequency parts, (3) AGC (automatic gain control) –
balancing the amplitudes, (4) Background removal – eliminating
horizontal band noise and filtering out the continuous flat reflections,
(5) Band‐pass filtering – applying lower cut‐off frequencies at
200/300 MHz and upper cut‐off frequencies at 700/800 MHz. No
topographic correction was applied due to the limited variability in
surface relief. The time slices are a common way to present GPR data
(Conyers, 2004). In addition to time slices presentation, 3D data visu-
alization was also performed within the same software package.
The total field magnetic survey was carried out on a total of 46 pro-
files in variable lengths in three sectors (Figure 2). Data were collected
by a Scintrex SM‐5 Cesium magnetometer in a constant speed walking
mode. The magnetic data were acquired in unidirectional mode to avoid
spurious effects and noise linked to survey geometry. The geo‐refer-
ence of the collected magnetic data was obtained by equalizing the
sampling duration to the total length of the profiles. Diurnal variations
of the Earth's magnetic field have been observed by re‐measuring the
total magnetic field at the starting position of each profile and the time
variation corrections were made by the means of these differences. The
data set was interpolated using the Kriging method to regular grids of
0.5 × 0.5 m2 cells. Finally, to smooth any directional noise, we apply a
filtering procedure by averaging a 3 × 3 moving window for each grid
point. A regional field was calculated by a first degree polynomial fitting
to the raw data. Then, the residual magnetic field was obtained by
subtracting the regional field from the raw data. According to Baranov

FIGURE 4 A combined view of the electrical resistivity imaging (ERI) sections obtained from resistivity profiles in Sector A. The position of the
observed ionic column is shown on the ERI‐1A section [Colour figure can be viewed at wileyonlinelibrary.com]
YILMAZ ET AL.
(1957), the magnetic anomalies are better interpreted after their pole
reductions because of positional shifting related to the direction of
magnetization which is a function of latitude. The reduced to pole field
was performed by using FFTFIL (Hildenbrand, 1983) assuming an equal
field and body magnetization direction of an inclination value of I = 57°
and a declination value of D = 4°.
3 | RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
3.1 | ERI survey results
The 20 ERI (ERI‐1A–9A and the ERI‐1B–11B) images carried out in
two sectors are shown in Figures 4 and 5, respectively. In all cases,
the absolute error ranges from 2.64% to 4.97%, and the number of
iterations varies from four to five. The obtained ERI sections provide
information about resistivity variations to a depth of approximately
8 m. They also allow identification of large resistivity variations rang-
ing from 5 to 400 Ω m, approximately. The images indicated a great
heterogeneity of the presence of the buried archaeological relics.
The ERI‐1A section obtained from the inversion of the measured
data on the first profile, which is the nearest to the location of the ille-
gal excavation, is shown in Figure 4. In this section, the high resistivity
values (>150 Ω m) are between 12 m and 19 m of the profile. These
values indicate that there is a second buried relic at about 17–18 m
FIGURE 5 A combined view of the electrical
resistivity imaging (ERI) sections obtained
from resistivity profiles in Sector B [Colour
figure can be viewed at wileyonlinelibrary.
com]
5
distance along the profile, in addition to the known archaeological col-
umn which is at about 13–14 m distance along the profile and 1.4 m
below the surface. There is also a relatively high resistivity value
(~110 Ω m) between 20 and 30 m along the profile which is related
to possible archaeological material. Similar results were also observed
in other ERI sections of the remaining profiles of Sector A (Figure 4).
The high resistive part in the ERI‐2A and ERI‐3A sections reflects
the same archaeological relics as interpreted in the ERI‐1A section.
In the middle of all the sections, the moderate resistive zone (50 to
150 Ω m) between 12 and 32 m along the profiles and 0.5–2.5 m in
depth was reduced towards the west. Furthermore, another moderate
resistive part in the beginning of the sections is related to a possible
buried relic. The low resistivity zones (< 30 Ω m) in the sections corre-
spond to the natural soil.
A combined view of the sections (ERI‐1B to ERI‐11B) of Sector B
is shown in Figure 5. At the beginning of the sections, a high resistivity
zone with values in excess of 150 to 200 Ω m appears to be near the
surface and trending in the west–east direction. This resistive part
seen in all of the ERI sections in Sector B is considered to correspond
to one of the major buried archaeological remains. A moderate west–
east trending resistive zone (60–100 Ω m) at the right‐hand side of the
sections is related to an elongated archaeological relic. Apart from
these, the low resistivity zones (< 30 Ω m) except for the medium
and high resistive parts seen in the sections do not contain archaeo-
logical remains.
6 YILMAZ ET AL.

As the ERI sections are parallel in the south–north direction and

spaced 1 m apart, it was possible to produce resistivity slices for dif-
ferent depths to visualize the horizontal spatial distribution of the
resistivity. These are shown in Figure 6 for depths of 0.77 m,
1.35 m, 1.99 m, 2.69 m and 3.46 m. The resistivity slices for Sector
A are shown in Figure 6(a). The high resistivity values (> 150 Ω m) at
the slices (depths: 0.77 m, 1.35 m, 1.99 m and 2.69 m) are due to
the known horizontal column and a second buried relic. The moderate
resistivity values (approximately 110 Ω m) at the southern edge of the
slices (depths: 0.77 m and 1.35 m) and in the middle part of the
resistivity slices (depths: 1.35 m, 1.99 m and 2.69 m) correspond to
some possible archaeological relics. The resistivity slices for Sector B
are shown in Figure 6(b). In Figure 6(b), high resistivity features
(> 150 Ω m) obtained at the southern edge of all slices suggest archae-
ological remains with an west–east extension which is closer to the
surface in the east. The moderate resistivity values in the middle part
of the slices show that the archaeological structure is buried between
the depths of 0.77 m and 1.99 m along an east–west alignment.

3.2 | GPR survey results

The processed data of the GPR profiles were combined to achieve a vol-
umetric visualization, and then time sliced for different depths. A volu-
metric visualization that indicates between 0.7–1.9 m of depth is
represented in Figure 7. This 3D image revealed clearly a quadrangle
structure and an elongated area. In order to be able to monitor the
anomalies seen or unseen in this image in more detail, GPR time slices
were obtained at different depths. GPR slices for six different time inter-
vals are shown in Figure 8. The strong reflectors related to archaeolog-
ical relics are observed in overall slices. The strong reflectors observed
in the north‐eastern part of the excavation area revealed a regular pat-
FIGURE 6 The resistivity slices for depths of 0.77 m, 1.35 m, 1.99 m,
tern similar to a quadrangle structure well defined between the slices of 2.69 m and 3.46 m. (a) Sector A and (b) Sector B [Colour figure can be
12 to 32 ns. At the south of the grid (time slices: 12–16 ns) there is an viewed at wileyonlinelibrary.com]
elongated area about 3 m wide (west–east orientation) and 0.2 m thick
characterized by high reflections. Due to its narrow depth extent, this
structure can be interpreted as a possible ancient road. The weak GPR
anomalies generally seen in the middle part of Sector A imply that some
other small archaeological relics are buried at shallow depths. In GPR
slices (8–16 ns) for the shallow depths (0.4–0.7 m), the small anomalies
at the distances of 13 to 14 m and 17 to 18 m in the right edge of Sector
A revealed the effect of archaeological remains in two locations, one of
which is the observed column (see Figure 1(b)). Apart from these, a
strong reflector observed nearby to the left of the excavation area seen
at 0.8 ns GPR slice is due to the known column. Furthermore, a similar
reflector observed about 3 m north of this location corresponds to
another possible buried relic.

3.3 | Magnetic survey results

The magnetic anomaly maps are shown in Figure 9(a)–9(d) to present
the spatial distribution of the magnetic signal. Figure 9(a) represents
the spatial distribution of the raw magnetic signal comprising magnetic
field values varying by 30 nT (46545–46575 nT). A small number of FIGURE 7 A volumetric image of the processed ground‐penetrating
lower values (~46510 nT) in the left bottom corner of the image is radar (GPR) data for depth of 0.8 m [Colour figure can be viewed at
caused by a metal fence structure located close to this part of the wileyonlinelibrary.com]
YILMAZ ET AL.
FIGURE 8 Horizontal time slices representing the strong reflections existed by subsurface archaeological structures [Colour figure can be
viewed at wileyonlinelibrary.com]
survey area. Figure 9(b) shows the regional trend obtained by fitting a
first degree surface to the raw data, which represents anomalies of
long wavelength sources (background). Figure 9(c) represents the
reduced to pole residual component of the data set, which provides
more visible results and highlights the main anomalies. The residual
magnetic values vary from about −15 nT to +15 nT. In this map, high
magnetic anomalies are seen in red colour tone, whereas low magnetic
anomalies are in blue tone. As can be seen from Figure 9, south of
Sector B and north of Sector C, a relative low field anomaly forming
a regular pattern appears as an organized system of linear structures.
Similarly, traces of west–east aligned features of high and low field
transition anomalies emerge to the northern part of Sector B. In the
western part of the existing excavation area (Sector A), the magnetic
field distribution shows characteristics of enclosed individual anomaly
groups of relative highs and lows rather than linear trending features
as obtained in Sectors B and C. In the northern part of the area wide
and smoothly changing anomalies are observed. According to the mag-
netic signal distribution, it is suggested that the main archaeological
structures with such geometric regularity exist in the eastern, north
and north‐eastern of the survey area. Particularly, the anomaly group
7
forming patterns of a square‐shaped structure at about 10 m × 15 m
in size, observed to the western of the excavation is of lower magnetic
value. Thus, we suspect the existence of a possible buried (dwelling)
structure in this location, and it might be composed of materials with
lower susceptibility content than the covering soil.
Determination of the edges of magnetic sources is a common
practice in the interpretation of magnetic data. Edge detection tech-
niques are usually based on the location of specific points of the hor-
izontal or the vertical derivatives, or their various combinations
(Wanyin, Pan, & Qiu, 2009). In general, a vertical sided source and
its first vertical derivative values are identical; negative outside the
source, zero over the edges and positive on the source. Despite that,
the horizontal gradient comprises peak values over the edges and it
decreases to zero over the source. To trace the outline of the edges,
the tilt angle filter being based on the ratio of the total horizontal
derivative to the vertical derivative has been introduced by Miller
and Singh (1994). It yields zero values over the source edges while it
is positive over the source and negative elsewhere. Cooper and
Cowan (2006) suggested using the hyperbolic tilt angle calculation
for a better delineation of the edges of causative bodies. In order to
8 YILMAZ ET AL.

FIGURE 9 Magnetic anomaly maps of the study area. (a) The total magnetic field map, (b) the regional map, (c) the residual map, (d) the first
vertical derivative map, (e) the hyperbolic tilt angle map. The grey coloured ellipse shows the position of the excavation area [Colour figure can
be viewed at wileyonlinelibrary.com]

warrant a higher resolution and to locate the edges of the causative
magnetic structures, the first vertical derivative (Figure 9(d)) and the
hyperbolic tilt angle (Figure 9(e)) from the tangent of the ratio of the
vertical to the total horizontal derivatives were computed. These pro-
cesses enhanced the image quality to locate the areas involving strong
magnetization contrasts.
3.4 | Integrated interpretation of multi‐methodical
geophysical survey
The geophysical anomalies that were detected with ERI, GPR and
magnetic methods are compared in Figure 10. Here, the most distinct
patterns of anomalies mapped through the different techniques are
encircled by black ellipses. There is a significant correlation in the
northeast of the excavation area between the first vertical derivative
magnetic anomalies in M‐1 (Figure 10(b)) and the strong reflector pat-
tern of GPR in G‐1 (Figure 10(c)), forming a definite rectangular shape
with its long side oriented towards the north. The western edge of this
recognized structure has been characterized by high resistivity anom-
alies in E‐1 (Figure 10(a)). Considering the size of this square shaped
anomaly model (in E‐1, G‐1 and M‐1) characterized by high resistivi-
ties, high radar reflections and high vertical derivatives of magnetics,
it is one of the main structures of the study covering an area of about
150 m2. The lateral boundary of this structure is identical in the hyper-
bolic tilt angle map (Figure 9(e)) where the anomaly pattern indicates
the presence of buried ancient wall structures in 1 m width. Geophys-
ical anomalies (in E2, M2 and G2) observed at the southern edge of
the study area support each other. Regarding its elongated shape
and its narrow thickness obtained from the ERI and GPR slices, the
structure here can be correlated with a possible ancient road buried
at a depth of about 0.5 m. A rough correlation appears between the
anomalies in E‐3, M‐3 and G‐3. Here, the high resistivity anomalies
and the strong reflectors of GPR are correlated with the column struc-
ture observable partly in the excavation and the possible relic some
metres north of it. However, much less detail can be inferred from
the derived magnetic data. A correlation between anomalies seen in
YILMAZ ET AL. 9

FIGURE 10 Integrated interpretation of the electrical resistivity imaging (ERI), ground‐penetrating radar (GPR) and vertical derivative magnetic
anomalies. Distinct anomalies are encircled by numbered black ellipses denoted with E, M and G for ERI, GPR and magnetics, respectively [Colour
figure can be viewed at wileyonlinelibrary.com]

E‐4 and G‐4 is remarkable towards the north of the excavation area
where high resistivities and strong reflectors are observed. This anom-
aly zone characterized by high resistivity features at the southern edge
of the resistivity slices (Figure 6(b)) presents a step‐like archaeological
structure which is closer to the surface at its eastern end. The ERI
anomalies characterized by moderate resistivities in E‐5 as well as
the vertical derivative magnetic anomalies in M‐5 exhibit a clear linear
structure in the west–east direction. However, no radar anomalies
were observed in the G‐5 due to the possible narrow width of the
structure. A small anomaly (E‐6, M‐6 and G‐6) seen at the northern-
most extent can be related to a remnant of an archaeological wall.
Apart from these, there exist a lot of small GPR and magnetic anomaly
groups pointing to many archaeological remains in the study area.
4 | CO NC LUSIO N
The present research consists of a multi‐methodical geophysical study
including ERI, GPR and magnetic techniques carried out in the Ören
site (north of Kılıç village) where previous information from an illegal
excavation revealed a monumental relic of Roman architecture. After
the evaluation and visualization of the field data obtained by these
techniques, the integrated geophysical survey resulted in subsurface
images of comparable accuracy containing valuable data. The interpre-
tation of these resulting images has contributed to the determination
of archaeological remains in the target site. Several anomalies have
been found; some are quite distinct with lateral extensions of several
metres. The integrated interpretation of the ERI, GPR and magnetic
10
anomalies in the western part of the excavation area indicates that
there are additional archaeological remains as well as the known hor-
izontal column. Such anomalies observed to the northeast, north and
south of the excavation area represent priority targets for a detailed
excavation. In particular, the good correlation of high radar reflections
and high vertical derivatives of magnetics in both northeast and south
of the excavation area revealed buried archaeological relics with rect-
angular and elongated shapes, respectively. Many other small promis-
ing anomalies distributed over all the study area point to local targets
of archaeological interest. These overall findings can be hypothesized
to suggest the presence of an ancient city foundation in this region. In
conclusion, the combined use of geophysical methods and the integra-
tion of the final results show that there is a need for a larger salvage
excavation than previously planned. In addition, the continuation of
the integrated archaeo‐geophysical survey in a larger area is of great
importance for illuminating buried structures in this newly discovered
archaeological site.
ACKNOWLEDGEMEN TS
The authors thank the General Directorate of Cultural Assets and
Museums of the Ministry of Culture and Tourism for allowing them
to work in the archaeological area and the Isparta Museum Director-
ate for providing logistical support. Financial support was provided
by the Süleyman Demirel University Research Fund (Project No:
4786‐YL1‐16). The authors would like to thank the anonymous
reviewers for their constructive comments, which have contributed
to significant improvements in this paper.
ORCID
Sedat Yilmaz http://orcid.org/0000-0002-9841-4900
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How to cite this article: Yilmaz S, Oksum E, Cakmak O,
Dogan O, Tekelioğlu E. Preliminary results of an integrated
archaeo‐geophysical survey on the basis of ancient finds
unearthed by an illegal excavation at Kılıç Ören site (Isparta,
Turkey). Archaeological Prospection. 2018;1–11. https://doi.
org/10.1002/arp.1702