Archeology from space Sarah Parcak

when I was a child growing up in Maine

one of my favorite things to do was to

look for sand dollars on the seashores

of Maine because my parents told me it

would bring me luck but you know these

shells they’re hard to find they’re

covered in sand they’re difficult to see

however over time I got used to looking

for them I I started seeing shapes and

patterns that help me to collect them

this this grew into a passion for

finding things a love for the past in

archaeology and eventually when I

started studying Egyptology I realized

that that seeing with my naked eyes

alone wasn’t enough because all of a

sudden in Egypt my Beach had grown from

a tiny Beach in Maine to one 800 miles

long next to the Nile and my sand

dollars had grown to the size of cities

this is really what brought me to using

satellite imagery for trying to map the

past I knew that I had to see

differently so I want to show you an

example of how we see differently using

the infrared this is a site located in

the eastern Egyptian Delta called Bendis

and the site visibly appears brown but

when we use the infrared and we process

it all of a sudden using false color the

site appears as bright pink what you are

seeing are the actual chemical changes

to the landscape caused by the building

materials and activities of the ancient

Egyptians what I want to share with you

today is how we’ve used satellite data

to find an ancient Egyptian city called

itched Aoi

missing for thousands of years each

tower was ancient Egypt’s capital for

over 400 years at a period of time

called the Middle Kingdom about four

thousand years ago the site is located

in the fame of Egypt and the site’s

really important because in the Middle

Kingdom that was this great Renaissance

for ancient Egyptian art architecture

and religion Egyptologist have always

known

the site of each toy was located

somewhere near the pyramids of the two

kings who built it indicated within the

red circles here but somewhere within

this massive floodplain this area is

huge it’s four miles by three miles in

size now the Nile used to flow right

next to the city of each tower and as it

shifted and changed and moved over time

to the east it covered over the city so

how do you find a buried city in a vast

landscape finding it randomly would be

the equivalent of locating a needle in a

haystack blindfolded wearing baseball

mitts so what we did is we used NASA

topography data to map out the landscape

very subtle changes we were started to

be able to see where the Nile used to

flow but you can see in more detail in

even more interesting this very slight

raised area seen within the circle

appeared what she thought could possibly

be the location of the city of its Howey

so we collaborated with Egyptian

scientists to do coring work which you

see here when I say coring it’s it’s

like ice coring but instead of layers of

climate change are looking for layers of

human occupation and five meters down

underneath a thick layer of mud we found

a dense layer of pottery what this shows

is that at this possible location

Wichita we 5 meters down we have a layer

of occupation for several hundred years

dating to the Middle Kingdom dating to

the exact period of time we think it’s

Howie is we also found worked stone

carnelian quartz and agate this shows

that there was a jewelers workshop here

these might not look like much but when

you think about the most common stones

used in jewelry from the Middle Kingdom

these are the stones that were used so

we have a dense layer of Occupation

dating to the Middle Kingdom at this

site we also have evidence of an elite

jewelers workshop showing that whatever

was there was a very important City no

it’s how he was here yet but we’re going

to be returning to the site in the near

future to map it out and even more

importantly we have funding to train

young Egyptians and the use of satellite

technology so that they can be the ones

making great discoveries as well so I

wanted to end with my favorite

quote from the Middle Kingdom it’s

probably written at the city of its

Howey

four thousand years ago sharing

knowledge is the greatest of all

callings there’s nothing like it in the

land so as it turns out ted was not

founded in nineteen eighty four eighty

making ideas happen huh

actually actually started in nineteen

eighty four BC at a not loss for long

city found from above it certainly puts

finding seashells by the seashore in

perspective thank you very much