Alabama Professor Finds Ancient Ruins Using Satellite Imagery

She is credited with finding ancient ruins all over the world using satellite imagery. When she's not in Egypt, she's at home in the Yellowhammer State. Meet Sarah H. Parcak, Alabama's own Indiana Jones of the digital age.

Sarah H. ParcakPhoto byUAB public faculty directory

Sarah H. Parcak is an archaeologist, Egyptologist, and Professor of Anthropology at the University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB). She's a pioneer in the field of satellite archaeology, which uses satellite technology to find and map possible ancient archaeological sites across the globe. She's credited with being the first Egyptologist to use satellite archaeology to aid in her research, and also wrote the first textbook in the field, Satellite Remote Sensing for Archaeology.

"From my lab in Alabama, we're able to map an entire city in Egypt," Sarah Pacak said on her website. Her research has been especially helpful in finding out how the Nile River's course has changed over the centuries. This information led to narrowing down the location of the ancient city of Itjtawy, a Middle Kingdom city in Egypt whose location was lost to time. Finding a location such as this via satellite technology can save archaeologists decades of searching by means of archaeological digs alone.

Photo byDario MorandottionUnsplash

Data studied so far by Parcak and her team in Egypt alone, predicts that less than one percent of ancient Egypt has been discovered and excavated. Parcak believes that satellite archaeology will play a much bigger role in the future of archaeology and help locate and preserve ancient sites before they are destroyed, looted, or buried under new human structures and settlements.

Click "follow" for more of my articles about the great state of Alabama! I'm a native and resident of the Shoals area of north Alabama, sharing events and unique stories about the places and people of Alabama the Beautiful. Have a story to tell? Email me: april.newsbreak@gmail.com.
As always, thanks for reading! Please give a "thumbs up" and share my articles - it helps a local writer!