Speaker
Description
The Copán archaeological site, located in western Honduras, is an ancient Maya city where numerous temples and stelae remain in well-preserved condition. Among them, Temple 8 has not yet been investigated internally, and the possibility of an undiscovered royal tomb has been suggested.
In this study, we conducted a cosmic-ray imaging observation using nuclear emulsion to non-destructively investigate the internal structure of Temple 8. Nuclear emulsion are three-dimensional tracking devices based on silver halide photographic technology. They offer high spatial and angular resolution, and are compact, lightweight, and require no power supply, making them particularly suitable for archaeological observations.
However, observations at Temple 8 present several challenges. The accumulation of noise tracks caused by environmental radiation limits the possible exposure period. In addition, from the standpoint of heritage conservation, the detector size and installation locations are strictly constrained. To address these issues, we optimized the detector structure and improved the imaging methodology, establishing a comprehensive observation framework covering detector production, installation, retrieval, and data analysis.
In this presentation, we report the development process and the results of the observation.