An easier method

Jun 6, 2007 06:53 GMT  ·  By
The Great Aten Temple at Tell el-Amarna, Middle Egypt. Even though the northern enclosure wall of the temple is buried beneath a modern cemetery, using Quickbird high resolution satellite imagery, it is still possible to see the buried wall
   The Great Aten Temple at Tell el-Amarna, Middle Egypt. Even though the northern enclosure wall of the temple is buried beneath a modern cemetery, using Quickbird high resolution satellite imagery, it is still possible to see the buried wall

We do not know if aliens were the ones that built the Egyptian pyramids, bringing their technique from Mars...But space technique is employed now to detect the ancient Egyptian sites.

Satellites have just detected an ancient Egyptian metropolis, located 200 miles (320 km) south of Cairo. Recent digging found indeed a settlement, dating from about 400 A.D.

The satellite mapping is part of a larger project, having the goal of making an assessment of as many ancient Egypt's archaeological sites as possible, before they are lost due to modern development.

"It is the biggest site discovered so far. Based on the coins and pottery we found, it appears to be a massive regional center that traded with Greece, Turkey and Libya." said project leader Sarah Parcak of the University of Alabama at Birmingham.

She has detected another large city dating from 600 B.C. and a monastery from 400 A.D., amongst other approximatively 400 sites that Parcak found during her satellite work. The oldest sites were 5,000 years old.

"Egypt contains a wealth of already identified archaeological tells like these, but even they represent only about 0.01 % of what is out there still uncovered", Parcak said.

But the majority of the ancient buried settlements are vulnerable to looting and urban sprawl.

"Nothing will ever destroy the Pyramids or the Temple of Luxor, but these huge settlement sites where we get a lot of information are being threatened. And that's how we find out how people lived."

"A site is going to appear very differently from space. Archaeological sites absorb moisture in a different way and tend to be covered with specific types of soil and vegetation," she said.

This is much harder to detect from the ground, so Egypt's government uses her catalog for digging the sites before development wipes out the site for good.