  The Muon Imaging for Mining and Archaeology (MIMA) project aims at the
development of a non-invasive technique for imaging dense structures or
cavities, hidden in the underground or anyway surrounded by huge volumes of
matter, based on Muon Absorption Radiography. Given its natural
multidisciplinary, the final purpose is the validation of this methodology for
applications in different fields, like Archaeology, Geology, mining, Civil
Engineering and Civil Protection, in close cooperation with team in these
fields. In this paper we report on the design, construction and performance of
a compact and lightweight muon telescope designed mainly for archaeological
investigation and geophysical prospections in general. The MIMA detector is
also used currently as a test instrument to study different hardware solutions
to optimize the global performance in these types of applications.
