Use of GPR for Imaging Subsurface Archaeological Remains in the Islamic City of Ayla, Aqaba, Jordan

The Islamic city of Ayla was founded in the eighth century. The city is located adjacent to the beach and extends for a few tens of meters north of the Gulf of Aqaba shoreline. The city was, once, a flourishing and commercial port, communicating with other ports around the Indian Ocean and with the Far East. The city had land roads that connect with Egypt, Iraq, Syria, and the Arabian Peninsula. The excavated ruins and other features are related to an ancient Islamic city. The ground penetrating radar survey was carried out using a Subsurface Interface Radar System- (SIRvoyer-20) with two different central frequency monostatic antennae 900 MHz and 400 MHz to target abundant subsurface buried archaeological material for forward excavations. The interpretation of radar cross section (radargram) shows many buried features with different patterns, widths, and shallow depths between 0.20 m to 0.6 m. These anomalies are corresponding to the depth of the excavated walls in the study area. GPR anomalies are discontinuous and being shifted and located at a high liquefaction susceptibility zone confirms that several earthquakes have rocked Aqaba and Gulf of Aqaba region.