Detecting Shallow Medieval Features in the Church of St. George, Slovakia

In the framework of OPIS-Operational Programme Information Society co-funded by the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF) the most important monuments of Slovak cultural heritage are recorded using modern geodetic techniques. More than two hundreds objects, e.g. historical bridges, cemeteries, sacral buildings, folk architecture reservations, rock-cut dwellings, have been documented so far. The Church of St. George was recorded using laser scanning combined with very precise geodetic measurements. We present here the results of microgravity and GPR surveys carried out in the nave of this church in order to delineate the position of burial vaults beneath the floor. In microgravity data processing we focused on the calculation of the building correction. For this purpose a detailed polyhedral model of the church was created. Integrated interpretation of geophysical results has confirmed the presence of two medieval crypts predicted from historical archives. Moreover, the remains of the oldest Romanesque construction stage of the church were successfully detected by both methods.