Archaeology from Space

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Archaeology from Space Page 27

by Sarah Parcak


  To my TED Fellow family: I want to thank all of you individually, but it would require an encyclopedia set. The friendships I have formed, the love and support you have given me when I really needed it, and the laughter at my terrible jokes (and especially applauding my onetime stand-up comedy performance) have given me life. You all inspire me to do more and be a better human—and you give me hope for the future. To the TED Fellows team: Tom Rielly, Shoham Arad, Patrick D’Arcy, Renee Friedman, Samantha Kelly … just wow. Other thank-yous to Susan Zimmerman, Kelly Stoetzel, Helen Walters, Dave Isay, Raj Panjabi, Jill Tarter, Drew Curtis, Adam Savage, Simon Sinek, Luke Dubois, Juan Enriquez, Diana Enrique Schneider, Monica Lewinsky, Amanda Palmer, and Neil Gaiman for your friendship and love and support.

  At UAB, where I teach, my chair, Doug Fry, has been suffering alongside me finishing his own book—thanks for your great solidarity. This book started with the support of our original dean, Tennant McWilliams, and I must thank him for his enduring friendship. Dick Marchase and Gail Andrews, you have been such amazing friends and supporters of me and my family.

  In Birmingham, I am blessed with incredible friends and supporters everywhere I go—you are an amazing community of people who hold me up and make me feel good about being here: Matt and Amy Hamilton (and your two adorable kids), our local mom and dad Jim and Liz Reed, Victoria Hollis, Lou and Tina DeNeen, the Ross family (Ami, Kenyon, Jackson, Katie, and Izzy), Dylan Fernany, Austin Senseman (my airplane husband), Rosie O’Beirne and family, Josh Carpenter, Deon Gordon, Sanjay Singh, members of the Birmingham Downtown Rotary Club, Innovation Depot, and the nice people who check us in at the zoo and McWane Science Center every weekend. Our dear friend Dee allows us to get things done. Thank you for treating our family like your own.

  I work with amazing people across the globe. In India, Nakul Saran, Shloka Nath, Anica Mann, I cannot thank you enough for your belief in our mission and your extraordinary support. I cannot wait to see what happens. In Peru, special thanks to the Ministry of Culture and the Sustainable Preservation Initiative. Larry Coben and Luis Jaime Castillo, you have been and continue to be wonderful friends and colleagues. Thank you.

  Monica Byrne, you have been there every step of this journey. Eric Cline, your encouragement and friendship have been cherished.

  GlobalXplorer has had wonderful mission supporters. Brian and Beth Ellyn McClendon, Todd Park, Wallace Mallone, thank you for your generosity and guidance. At DigitalGlobe, where the satellite images you have seen in this book originated, huge thanks to Shay Har-Noy, Nancy Coleman, Jeremy Hale, Caitlin Milton, Ryan Herman, and team, and Luke Barrington. Other major thanks to Lyda Hill—a true champion of women in science—and her team, Nicole Small and Margaret Black. Mondo Robot has been a phenomenal organization with whom to partner for our platform. Thanks especially to Chris Hess. For funding our work, special thanks to the US National Science Foundation and the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada.

  In the United Kingdom, thanks to my dear friend Dan Snow and his beautiful family. Flora Spiegel and Tony Miller, Curtis, and Ruth, you are our home and family away from home. To the extraordinary Department of Archaeology at Cambridge University, I will forever be grateful to wonderful lecturers who continue to be supportive and kind. To the BBC team: Louise Bray, Harvey Lilley, Dallas Campbell, Liz Bonnin, and Nathan Williams, you helped make so much of this research possible. Also thank you to Rick Barton of the Orkney Research Center for Archaeology, Dr. Val Turner, and the volunteer team from the weekend at Papa Stour.

  In Canada and Newfoundland, thank you to the gracious Martha Drake and her team at the Provincial Archaeology Office, Gerald Penny and his team, and especially Blair Temple, from Gerald Penny and Associates. Also thank you to our Newfoundland team members Dr. Karen Milek, Oskar Sveinbjarnarson, and Dr. Davide Zori. Dr. Fred Schwarz, Hockey Gale and his family, and the lovely and welcoming people of Newfoundland, thank you. I miss the Jigg’s dinners and the gorgeous music.

  Thanks to Jim Bildner, Stephanie Khurana and team at DRK, and the community of Young Global Leaders. I’m lucky to be a part of such amazing organizations with extraordinary people. Major thanks to the Archaeological Institute of America and ASOR for being such leading organizations.

  For all my Bangor, Yale, and Cambridge friends: you know who you are. I promise I’ll be better about being in touch now that this book is done.

  Abigail Washburn and Béla Fleck and Juno and plus one: I love y’all. Watching the eclipse together was the magic spark that lit the writing of this book.

  For my close family: Mom, Dad, Aaron, Kate, David, Jeanette, Ben, Emily, Steve, Mike, you’ve all been there every step of my journey. Your love has sustained me and nurtured me.

  Greg, my beloved husband: your patience is a bottomless well, and your good-natured spirit has endured much in the completion of this book. I wouldn’t be here without you, and there is no way I would have been able to do much of what I’ve written about without your wisdom and support. If there is a diamond-encrusted chalice for Husband of the Millennium Award, it is all yours. Gabriel, munchkin, Mommy has not played with you as much as she would have liked while writing this book. I’m going to be making up for it for a long time. By the time this comes out, you will be able to read it, which to me is a testament to your perseverance. I’m so proud of you I cannot stand it. You give your daddy and me life and are the best thing that has ever happened to us. Thank you as well to our little furry beasties, who provided endless needed nuzzles and cuddles.

  Finally, this book is dedicated to my aunt, Sue Young, who was a second mother to me and my brother growing up. You have taught me so much about the gift of life, hope, love, overcoming odds, and patience. You have loved us all unconditionally and never forget anything. You make me believe the world can be a better place, someday.

  Bronze fittings excavated at Tell Tebilla

  [photo courtesy Greg Mumford]

  Photograph of the landscape of Skagafjörður

  [photo by the author]

  Processed WorldView-2 satellite imagery of Tanis showing the extent of the ancient settlement [courtesy DigitalGlobe]

  General photograph of the central area of Tanis, showing the silty landscape where the bulk of the city appears in the satellite imagery. Virtually nothing is visible on the surface. [photo by the author]

  WorldView-2 processed satellite image of feature at Papa Stour, North House

  [courtesy DigitalGlobe]

  Processed Landsat-7 satellite imagery, showing multispectral analysis of a site in Egypt [imagery courtesy NASA]

  Analyzing the core samples at Lisht with Dr. Zaghloul, Dr. Bunbury, Dr. Bader, and Louise Bray from the BBC [photo by the author]

  Digging the tomb of Intef at Lisht [photo by the author]

  Image of an ancient face from Lisht [photo by the author]

  Intef’s name and title [photo by the author]

  Eye inlay from Intef’s tomb [photo by the author]

  Completed excavations at the tomb of Intef [photo by the author]

  Looting density across Egypt [image by the author]

  Sarcophagus of Shesep-Amun-Tayes-Herit, likely from Abusir el Malik

  [imagery courtesy Rebecca Hale, National Geographic Creative]

  Notes

  *Please note some of the links referenced throughout this work may no longer be active.

  The page numbers for the notes that appeared in the print version of this title are not in your e-book. Please use the search function on your e-reading device to search for the relevant passages documented or discussed.

  Introduction

  1.    For examples of stereoscopes and how to use them, see Thomas R. Lyons and Thomas Eugene Avery, Remote Sensing: A Handbook for Archeologists and Cultural Resource Managers (Washington, DC: Cultural Resources Management Division, National Park Service, US Department of the Interior, 1977).

  2.    Technology, Entertainment and Design, “Ideas Worth Spreadin
g.”

  3.    Jonas Gregorio de Souza et al., “Pre-Columbian Earth-Builders Settled Along the Entire Southern Rim of the Amazon,” Nature Communications, vol. 9, no. 1125 (2018), https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-018-03510-7.

  Chapter 1

  1.    There is an ongoing debate over what constitutes an archaeological site, and this will vary by state or by country. I believe a site is any place where human activity took place in the past, from a small lithic scatter to a massive temple.

  2.    Kareem Shaheen and Ian Black, “Beheaded Syrian Scholar Refused to Lead ISIS to Hidden Syrian Antiquities,” Guardian, 19 August 2015, https://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/aug/18/isis-beheads-archaeologist-syria, accessed 14 February 2018.

  3.    Palmyra was inscribed as a World Heritage site in 1980. Ongoing efforts at the site can be seen here: “Site of Palmyra,” UNESCO, https://whc.unesco.org/en/list/23, accessed 14 February 2018.

  4.    John R. Clarke, Looking at Lovemaking: Constructions of Sexuality in Roman Art, 100 B.C.–A.D. 250 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1998).

  5.    Leonard Lesko, ed., Pharaoh’s Workers: The Villagers of Deir el Medina (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1994).

  6.    Gregorio Oxilia et al., “Earliest Evidence of Dental Caries Manipulation in the Late Upper Palaeolithic,” Nature: Scientific Reports, vol. 5, no. 12150 (2015), https://doi.org/10.1038/srep12150.

  7.    Gregory Mumford, “The University of Toronto Tell Tebilla Project (Eastern Delta),” The American Research Center in Egypt Annual Report, 2001 (Atlanta: Emory University West Campus, 2001), 26–27.

  8.    Dorothea Arnold, “Statues in Their Settings: Encountering the Divine,” Ancient Egypt Transformed: The Middle Kingdom, ed. Adela Oppenheim et al. (New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2015), 19.

  9.    Adel Allam et al., “Computed Tomographic Assessment of Atherosclerosis in Ancient Egyptian Mummies,” Journal of the American Medical Association, vol. 302, no. 19 (2009): 2091–94, https://doi.org/10.1001/jama.2009.1641.

  10.  “The Two Brothers: Together in Life and Death,” Manchester Museum: Collections: Gallery Picks, http://www.thestudymcr.com/collections/pick/the-two-brothers/, accessed 15 February 2018.

  11.  Konstantina Drosou et al., “The Kinship of Two 12th Dynasty Mummies Revealed by Ancient DNA Sequencing,” Journal of Archaeological Science: Reports, vol. 17 (2018): 793–97, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jasrep.2017.12.025.

  12.  Robert Ascher, “Experimental Archeology,” American Anthropologist, vol. 63, no. 4 (1961): 793–816, https://doi.org/10.1525/aa.1961.63.4.02a00070. For an example of a forward-thinking approach to experimental archaeology, see Michael Brian Schiffer et al., “New Perspectives on Experimental Archaeology: Surface Treatments and Thermal Response of the Clay Cooking Pot,” American Antiquity, vol. 59, no. 2 (1994): 197–217, https://doi.org/10.2307/281927.

  13.  Neil Peterson, “Kicking Ash, Viking Glass Bead Making,” Experimental Archaeology (April 2017), https://exarc.net/issue-2017-4/ea/kicking-ash, accessed 17 February 2017.

  14.  Kumar Akhilesh and Shanti Pappu, “Bits and Pieces: Lithic Waste Products as Indicators of Acheulean Behaviour at Attirampakkam, India,” Journal of Archaeological Science: Reports, vol.4 (December 2015): 226–41, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jasrep.2015.08.045.

  15.  Wendy Marston, “Making a Modern Mummy,” Discover Magazine, March 2000, http://discovermagazine.com/2000/mar/featmaking, accessed 17 February 2017.

  16.  Nicholas David and Carol Kramer, Ethnoarchaeology in Action (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001), https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9781316036488.

  17.  Colin Hope, Egyptian Pottery, Shire Egyptology (London: Bloomsbury, 2008).

  18.  For a fascinating application of cognitive archaeology, see Nathan Schlanger, “Understanding Levallois: Lithic Technology and Cognitive Archaeology,” Cambridge Archaeological Journal, vol. 6. no. 2 (1996): 231–54, https://doi.org/10.1017/S0959774300001724.

  19.  P. Oxy, “Letter of Heras to Theon and Sarapous,” The Oxyrhynchus Papyri (London: Egypt Exploration Society, 2011), 76; Bernard Pyne Grenfell and Arthur Surridge Hunt, Oxyrhynchus Papyri I (London: Egypt Exploration Fund, 1898), 185–86.

  20.  David Kennedy, “‘Gates’: A New Archaeological Site Type in Saudi Arabia,” Arabian Archaeology and Epigraphy, vol. 28, no. 2 (2017): 153–74, https://doi.org/10.1111/aae.12100.

  21.  Gregory Mumford, “A Late Period Riverine and Maritime Port Town and Cult Center at Tell Tebilla (Ro-nefer),” Journal of Ancient Egyptian Interconnections, vol. 5, no. 1 (2013): 38–67, https://doi.org/10.2458/azu_jaei_v05i1_mumford.

  22.  Mohammed Effendi Chaban, “Monuments recueillis pendant mes inspections,” Annales du Service des Antiquités de l’Egypte, vol. 1 (1910): 28–30.

  23.  Gregory Mumford, “Concerning the 2001 Season at Tell Tebilla (Mendesian Nome),” The Akhenaten Temple Project Newsletter, 2002, 1–4.

  24.  John Taylor, “The Third Intermediate Period (1069–664 BC),” The Oxford History of Ancient Egypt, ed. Ian Shaw (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004), 330–68.

  25.  Aidan Dodson, Afterglow of Empire: Egypt from the Fall of the New Kingdom to the Saite Renaissance (Cairo: American University in Cairo Press, 2012), 167–73.

  26.  Alan B. Lloyd, “The Late Period (664–332 BC),” in Shaw, Oxford History of Ancient Egypt, 369–94.

  27.  Lloyd, “The Late Period (664–332 BC),” in Shaw, Oxford History of Ancient Egypt, 383–85.

  28.  Stephen Ruzicka, Trouble in the West: Egypt and the Persian Empire, 525–332 BCE, Oxford Studies in Early Empire (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012).

  29.  Ruzicka, Trouble in the West, 182–84.

  30.  Sarah Parcak et al., “Using Open Access Satellite Data Alongside Ground Based Remote Sensing: An Assessment, with Case Studies from Egypt’s Delta,” Geosciences, vol. 7, no. 4 (2017), https://doi.org/10.3390/geosciences7040094.

  31.  Larry A. Pavlish, “Archaeometry at Mendes: 1990–2002,” Egypt, Israel, and the Ancient Mediterranean World: Studies in Honor of Donald B. Redford, ed. Gary N. Knoppers and Antoine Hirsch (Leiden: Brill, 2004), 61–112.

  32.  Karl W. Butzer, Early Hydraulic Civilization in Egypt: A Study in Cultural Ecology, Prehistoric Archeology and Ecology (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1976).

  Chapter 2

  1.    Donald B. Redford, “Mendes,” The Oxford Encyclopedia of Ancient Egypt, ed. Donald B. Redford, vol. 2 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001), 376–77.

  2.    Donald B. Redford, City of the Ram-Man: The Story of Ancient Mendes (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2010).

  3.    Redford, City of the Ram-Man.

  4.    Matthew J. Adams, “An Interim Report on the Naqada III—First Intermediate Period Stratification at Mendes,” Delta Reports (Research in Lower Egypt), ed. Donald Redford, vol. 1 (Oxford and Oakville: Pennsylvania State University, 2009), 121–206.

  5.    Ann Macy Roth, “Funerary Ritual,” The Oxford Encyclopedia of Ancient Egypt, ed. Donald B. Redford, vol. 1 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001), 575–80.

  6.    Anthony J. Spalinger, “Festivals,” in Redford, Oxford Encyclopedia of Ancient Egypt, vol. 1, 521–25.

  7.    Donald B. Redford, “Mendes,” in Redford, Oxford Encyclopedia of Ancient Egypt, vol. 2, 376–77.

  8.    Jennifer Houser Wegner, “Shu,” in Redford, Oxford Encyclopedia of Ancient Egypt, vol. 3, 285–86.

  9.    “Catacombs of Kom Ash Shuqqafa,” Lonely Planet: Egypt (2017), https://www.lonelyplanet.com/egypt/alexandria/attractions/catacombs-of-kom-ash-shuqqafa/a/poi-sig/437604/355232, accessed 4 February 2018; “Catacombs of Kom El-Shouqafa,” Egyptian Tourism Authority, http://www.egypt.travel/attractions/catacombs-of-kom-el-shouqafa/, accessed 4 February 2018.

 

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