Armchair Archeology
Combining traditional archaeological methods with the power of technology
Experience the stories in 3D with the Google Earth plugin
Explore stories on the globe
or in the timeline below.
- All themes
- Cartography for All
- Community Stories
- Armchair Archeology
- Teach the World
- Protect the Earth
- Mapping for Good
- Virtual Travel
- Off the Map
- 2010
-
Date:
November 2010
-
Geo Coordinates:
22.194278,40.441325
-
KML Link:
-
Behind the Project:
- SA Jeddah2 Pendant 763
- SA Jeddah2 Pendant 1089
Archaeologist discovers 2,000 sites from thousands of miles away
If Indiana Jones had had Google Earth at his disposal, he might have had an easier time of it. The tale of one Australian archaeologist demonstrates that modern-day heroes can notch up their discoveries even while they're comfortably thousands of miles away from the objects of their investigations.
Professor David Kennedy of the University of Western Australia was comfortably seated in his desk chair in Perth when he remotely identified 1,977 potential archaeological sites in Saudi Arabia. The academic had never visited the Middle Eastern country before, but high-resolution imagery in Google Earth enabled him to unearth his world-changing discoveries remotely.
By carefully scanning 1,240 square kilometers of the country, Dr. Kennedy and his colleague Dr. Michael Bishop revealed 1,082 pendant-shaped ancient tombs and hundreds of other sites that could be up to 9,000 years old. A paper on their findings was published in the Journal of Archaeological Science (2011), enabling other academics to build on this accomplishment. A second paper in the same journal maps out a potential program for future remotely sensed research (2011 online).
"It is readily apparent that the use of GE [Google Earth] for the prospection and identification of sites has great potential when dealing with a huge area that is otherwise largely inaccessible on the ground." – Professor David Kennedy, University of Western Australia
The findings are all the more significant because historically it has been very difficult to undertake archaeological ground surveys of the region, much less access aerial photographs. Although the country covers 2.15 million square kilometers (twice the size of the U.K., France, and Germany combined), Saudi Arabia has been one of the least explored countries archaeologically – until now.
Since 1997 Professor Kennedy and his colleague Dr. Robert Bewley have undertaken the only program of aerial reconnaissance in the Middle East researching archaeological sites across Jordan. In particular they have recorded thousands of ancient stone structures similar to those now revealed by Google Earth in Saudi Arabia. His research will be published in an upcoming issue of the Journal of Archaeological Science (2011).
