Poland’s Wawel castle explored with cosmic ray technology

Scientists in Poland are using cosmic ray technology to scan the underground structures of Wawel Hill, the site of Wawel Castle in Kraków.

The team installed a detector inside the Dragon’s Den to map potential tunnels and cavities without damaging the historic landmark. This project, called VIEW, combines a Polish technology company, MUOTECH, with physicists from the Swiss Federal Polytechnic in Lausanne (EPFL) and curators from Wawel Castle.

Researchers chose this method, called muography, because it uses naturally occurring cosmic ray particles, specifically muons, to create an image of what lies beneath the surface. Muons penetrate rock, and the detector counts them from various angles. A higher number of muons suggests the presence of voids like passageways or cracks. The team hopes to pinpoint areas for future archaeological excavations.

This non-invasive scanning technique previously helped discover a hidden chamber above the Great Gallery of the Cheops Pyramid in Egypt in 2017, and was recently used to study Buda Castle in Budapest. Dr. Monika Kamińska, head of the Archaeology Department at Wawel Castle, explained that muography allows them to see inside the hill “without the need for drilling and any invasive intervention in the area.”