Using Google Earth to Find Ancient Cities

An anonymous reader writes "A story in the online site of the Aussie science mag Cosmos discusses how archaeologists are using sophisticated satellite images to find previously undiscovered cities. What 's really cool is how some are simply using Google Earth — and discovering all sorts of previously unknown sites!"

No comments and the side is already quite slow, so

[pklinken (773410)]

Here goes:

http://www.cosmosmagazine.com.nyud.net/node/1764 [nyud.net]

First time...

[oblonski (1077335)]

...I came across Google Earth was in September 2005, and I remember what led me to it was a story about Italian person finding old Roman ruins while discovering some 'formations' near his home village

they did this in 1992

[circletimessquare (444983)]

http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/radar/sircxsar//ubar1.html [nasa.gov]

they found a biblical city called ubar in oman this way, by tracing the minute traces left by ancient caravan roads only visible by certain radars on a huge scale

no lost ark, but apparently this is where all that weird stuff called frankincense came from

satellite imagery

[l2718 (514756)]

You are right to point at the older story -- we need to make a distinction. The scientific point here is the use of satellite imagery to locate old cities. To social point is that Google Earth has made satellite images infinitely more accessible -- you don't need to be part of NASA anymore.

Nice, but. . .

[Zenaku (821866)]

Do these cities have StreetView yet? It could provide a vivid picture of what life was like in ancient times. :)

Re:Nice, but. . .

[daeley (126313)]

They're working on it, but haven't been able to get the camera cars up to the requisite 88 mph.

Re:

[kabocox (199019)]

Do these cities have StreetView yet? It could provide a vivid picture of what life was like in ancient times. :)

It's only a matter of time.

It's laugably easy!

[Quiet_Desperation (858215)]

In just five minutes I found this weird ancient obelisk!

Obelisk [google.com]

Wow! A previously unknown sphinx!

Sphinx [google.com]

Some sort of ancient roadway system. It's a bit hard to make out.

Ancient trade routes [google.com]

Re:

[icebike (68054)]

The weirdest thing about those satellite images is that they are NOT satellite images.

Many people are under the mistaken impression that Google Earth ONLY uses satellite images. That's simply untrue, and anyone who reads the GE FAQ would know this.

Those photos are aerial mapping photos produced by an airplane flying "tracks" across the city. They are then stitched together to form a mosaic, and since this was done with public funds the images are available to google earth for a modest fee. Seattle has si

Re:

[gEvil (beta) (945888)]

Image stitching

Really? How come I can't see the thread marks? Oh, I bet they're using something like fishing line...

It's laugably easy! To make mistakes.

[DerekLyons (302214)]

t is actually easy to find candidates, but how about travelling to mexixo? http://maps.google.ca/maps?hl=en&ie=UTF8&ll=20.558767,-88.630174&spn=0.003541,0.005021&t=h&z=18&om=1 [google.ca] This could be anything, but an ancient structure is one of the possiblilities. MB

Going to Google Earth, which uses the same imagery... one finds multiple similiar sites in the general area, as well as the remains of roads. One also finds current roads, and recently logged areas, like this one [google.ca] (just a kilome

Michael Crichton had the idea in 1980's Congo

[by Anonymous Coward]

"Yes." She pointed to the screen. "But don't be deceived by what you see here. This satellite image covers fifty thousand square kilometers of jungle. Most of it has never been seen by white men. It's hard terrain, with visibility limited to a few meters in any direction. An expedition could search that area for years, passing within two hundred meters of the city and failing to see it. So I needed to narrow the search sector. I decided to see if I could find the city."

Find the city? From satellite pictures?

"Yes," she said. "And I found it."

Re:

[xenocide2 (231786)]

Yes, but the difference is that we're not limiting the people viewing the pictures to Jane Goodall. That's the social point here -- getting the data is tricky, but sifting through it is simple enough. That's why many scientists guard their data carefully before publication I suppose; they don't want someone else beating them to the discoveries.

Michael Crichton ripped this idea off.

[DerekLyons (302214)]

The first usage of aerial photography for archaeological purposes dates back into the 1920's. Using aerial photography and radar for searching out sites of archaeological interest was covered in National Geographic back in the 1950's. I remember seeing in my dad's photogrammetry magazines from the 1960's, aerial photography services specifically advertising their availability for archaeological surveys. (As well as multiple articles in the magazines on that very topic.) A book of NASA terrestrial photography I own from the 1970's dedicates an entire chapter to the usage of satellite photography for archaeological purposes.
 
At best, Crichton independently reinvented a technique already well known in professional circles.

That's nothing...

[pmike_bauer (763028)]

...google earth now finds your keys

Next movie in the series

[by Anonymous Coward]

"Indiana Jones and the Blue Screen of Death"

What will they think of next?

[AngryNick (891056)]

First impact craters ( How to Discover Impact Craters with Google Earth [slashdot.org]), now ancient cities!?! I'm still looking for my car.

Less glorious than it sounds, but...

[CuriousCuller (1198941)]

any technology such as this is invaluable to us archaeologists. You see, these days archaeologists are loath to put their WHS trowels in the ground for a simple reason: archaeology is the unrepeatable experiment. Unlike most sciences, you cannot go back and recover from any mistakes. Once it's up, it's up and that's the end of that. Untold valuable sites have been irreparable screwed up by previous clumsy excavations and thousands of artefacts have horribly degraded due to us not really understanding the conversation process. It's really only a miracle of fate that Howard Carter found Tutankhamen's tomb when he did - a few years before and most what of he discovered would be remembered to us only by grainy sepia photographs. Still, even with the reasonably modern techniques and equipment at his disposable a lot of damage was done and like a forensic site, much of the evidence has been contaminated.

Archaeological investigations these days tend to be for emergency purposes. Or in layman's terms, someone's building a motorway through an iron age hill (as in Ireland), or someone found a Roman bathhouse while pile driving the foundations for an office block. To be fair the latter shouldn't happy as archaeologists are normally called in to do a preliminary investigation before construction, at least in archaeological sensitive places such as London, Paris etc. It's pretty hard to get money for pure archaeology now. Mostly because governments would rather fund other, more pragmatic research fields and secondly because modern archaeologists are a squeamish bunch - if something's sat in situ for two millennia without any problems it can afford to wait a decade or more until adequate funding and a conservation strategy are in place. Nowadays most of the glory is going to the geophys guys and not Indiana Jones.

For this reason any methods which can provide any insight, no matter how small, are gaining ground. Really, despite what most people think of archaeologists we're not treasure hunters. We're trying to piece together the past piece by piece. What we're looking for is not lost cities, but rather more mundane artefacts like field boundaries, foundations, lost turnpike roads between settlements etc. Google Earth maybe good at this sort of thing, maybe even for smaller structures too and maybe very handy when trying to piece together larger landscapes. You're probably not going to find Eldorado though.

Re:WMD Found

[eviloverlordx (99809)]

Maybe we can find out the location of Dick Cheney's Undisclosed Location.

Re:

[RockedMan40 (1130729)]

Easy; National check of hospitals with shotgun wounds by bird hunters.

Re:

[FredFredrickson (1177871)]

Or just dangle an oil drenched sack of money on a stick.. he'll show up.

Re:Work underwater?

[AndGodSed (968378)]

An infra red imaging device, or certain wavelengths of radar should work nicely. And I am sure there are satellites up there that are capable of that.

Imagine the submarine hunting possibilities! No way the military has not at least investigated the technology...

Re:Work underwater?

[baldass_newbie (136609)]

You mean something like the SOSUS network [findarticles.com].

Re:Work underwater?

[NorthWestFLNative (973147)]

Ultraviolet photographs might work, but since water absorbs longer wavelengths infrared photographs may not show anything. On a side note, that's why everything underwater looks blue-green without a supplemental light, the red wavelength has been mostly absorbed.

Re:

[mr_mischief (456295)]

Ley lines probably do exist in some form or another. Magnetic deposits in the crust, auroras, the Earth's own main magnetic field and all kinds of things mean it's not completely improbable that lines of energy flow from one point of the globe to another naturally. The major magnetic field of the Earth from its rotating iron and nickel fore surely has fluctuations in it that cause energy imbalances. Those imbalances will be settled by moving electrons around.

That it's some mystical "mana" energy that flows