Structures belong to ‘successive periods’: Survey

However, the report says: ‘‘The exact nature of these anomalies has to be confirmed by systematic ground truthing, such as provided by archaeological trenching.’’ The report has a disclaimer attached to it. It says: ‘‘Due to inherent limitations of the technique… there might be discrepancies…’’

The survey, commissioned by the Archeological Survey of India, goes on to say ‘‘the ring and high amplitude’’ sequence in the southern portion of the Ram Chabutara areas extends across the fences to the east to the main platform area, which may be ‘‘indicative of a flooring structure of some sort, possibly stone slabs, if its origin is ancient.’’

According to the report, the main geo-radar features — anomaly alignments — exist ‘‘across the main platform, north and south of the sanctum sanctorum’’, extending to the Ram Chabutara area, the ‘‘high-amplitude ringy sequence’’ towards the south, and the mound structures to the east. It says: ‘‘In their cross-section appearence…, the anomaly alignments may correspond to a wall foundation of some sort. In the Ram Chabutara area, the crossing patterns of those alingments and the different stratigraphic units from where they emerge suggest that they belong to successive construction periods rather than being contemporary to one another.’’

‘‘A third type of buried structures covers the entire eastern boundary wall of the site. It consists of buried mound structures with some internal texture or structure indicative of collapsed material. Similar anomalies have been detected to the south-west area just before the terrain slopes down.’’

The surveyed area, about 3,900 square meters, was demarcated by boundary slabs (see graphic). The basic purpose was ‘‘to ascertain the presence of foundations of any structure buried below the disputed site or otherwise.’’

Many small anomalies appear to line up in some directions. ‘‘They,’’ according to the report, ‘‘may correspond to pillars alignment, broken up sections of wall foundations or fortuitous patterns of independent objects or natural features.’’

The report talks about a debris zone in the surveyed site where the geo-physical interpretation is difficult.

‘‘This area as explained earlier is a debris zone where heterogeneous material was apparently dumped from upper platform and the origin of those detected anomalies could also be debris.’’

Apparently, this is the zone where reworked materials or rubbles are buried at the disputed site.

While the private company has used state-of-the-art equipment to suggest the existence of ‘‘structures,’’ but their age and nature will come out after the excavations at the site.