Sarah Parcak Quotes

I predict that there are hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of undiscovered ancient sites across the globe. The only way to map them and locate them quickly is from satellites.

What satellites help to show us is we've actually only found a fraction of a percent of ancient settlements and sites all over the world... It's the most exciting time in history to be an archaeologist.

I'm an Egyptologist. I'm a remote sensing specialist, and I'm a space archaeologist.

I can't tell you the number of times I've been walking over an archaeological site. And you can't see anything on the ground, and pull back hundreds of miles in space, and all of a sudden you can see streets and roads and houses and even pyramids.

There are so many previously unknown sites and structures all over the world. And I think most importantly what satellites help to show us is we've actually only found a fraction of a percent of ancient settlements and sites all over the world.

When you think about the scale of human populations all over the world and the fact that there's so much here, really, the only way to be able to visualize that is to pull back in space... It allows us to see hidden temples and tombs and pyramids and even entire settlements.

The most exciting moment as an archaeologist happened when I was looking at the great archaeology site of Tannis, which of course we all know from 'Indiana Jones.' We got satellite imagery of the city of Tannis, we processed it, and literally from thousands of miles away from my lab in Alabama, we were able to map the entire city.

All over the world, we're finding out that, you know, whether it's Egypt or Syria or Central America, what satellites are showing is that there are hundreds, if not thousands, of previously unknown settlements all over the world, and what archaeology does, it helps us to understand this common humanity that we have.

What if Hiram Bingham had the technology to find hundreds of other archaeological sites at the same time and create entire 3-D maps of the ancient landscape accurate to within a few inches?

It's an important tool to focus where we're excavating. It gives us a much bigger perspective on archaeological sites. We have to think bigger, and that's what the satellites allow us to do.

Think about what would happen if Indiana Jones and Google Earth had a love child. I use high-resolution and NASA satellites and look for subtle differences on the surface of the earth that locate buried ancient pyramids and towns and ancient tombs, which we then go and excavate.

The only technology that can 'see' beneath the ground is radar imagery. But satellite imagery also allows scientists to map short- and long-term changes to the Earth's surface. Buried archaeological remains affect the overlying vegetation, soils and even water in different ways, depending on the landscapes you're examining.

'Satellite archaeology' refers to the use of NASA and commercial high resolution satellite datasets to map and discover past structures, cities, and geological features.

Before doing fieldwork in Middle Egypt, I analyzed satellite imagery to determine exactly where I wanted to go. Within three weeks, I found about 70 sites. If I had approached this as a traditional foot survey, it would have taken me three and a half years.

Archaeologists gave the military the idea to use aerial photographs for spying and field survey. We are fortunate that the spatial and spectral resolutions of the imagery available to us are so broadly useful for archaeology.

We're using satellites to help map and model cultural features that could never be seen on the ground because they're obscured by modernization, forests, or soil.

Archaeologists have used aerial photographs to map archaeological sites since the 1920s, while the use of infrared photography started in the 1960s, and satellite imagery was first used in the 1970s.

When a wall is slowly covered over by earth, the materials it's made from decay and become part of the soils around and above it, sometimes causing vegetation above and next to the wall to grow faster or slower. Satellite imagery helps archaeologists to pick up these subtle changes.

Google was like the only company that was like, 'We're making so much money; let's take a picture of every street in the world.' Nobody does that.

Archaeologists use datasets from NASA and commercial satellites, processing the information using various off-the-shelf computer programs. These datasets allow us to see beyond the visible part of the light spectrum into the near, middle, and far infrared.

The most exciting part of what I do is understanding the scale of what we don't know. There are just countless archaeological sites all over the world, and one of the most important and best ways of finding them is using digital technology.

Satellite imagery is the only way we can map the looting patterns effectively.

Google Earth is an incredible resource because from hundreds of miles in space, we can zoom in, and we can find things. Everyone always looks for their house first. That is the tip of the iceberg with remote sensing.

I am one of many people documenting damage and looting at ancient sites from space - it is such a crucial tool.

Google Earth has become a little bit of an icon in our society. You get on maps and you wanna see what the quality of the road's like, you go on Google Maps.