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Giant Archaeological Trove Found Via Google Earth
An anonymous reader writes "Using detailed satellite imagery available through Google Earth, Australian researchers have discovered what may be tombs that are thousands of years old in remote stretches of Saudi Arabia (abstract). 'Kennedy scanned 1240 square kilometers in Saudi Arabia using Google Earth. From their birds-eye view he found 1977 potential archaeological sites, including 1082 "pendants" — ancient tear-drop shaped tombs made of stone. According to Kennedy, aerial photography of Saudi Arabia is not made available to most archaeologists, and it's difficult, if not impossible, to fly over the nation. "But, Google Earth can outflank them," he says. Kennedy confirmed that the sites were vestiges of an ancient life — rather than vegetation or shadow - by asking a friend in Saudi Arabia, who is not an archaeologist, to drive out to two of the sites and photograph them. By comparing the images with structures that Kennedy has seen in Jordan, he believes the sites may be up to 9000 years old, but ground verification is needed."
To post this on the web? Potential for grave robbers is incredible in that area. And those may be extremely interesting from an archeological point of view.
If builders built buildings the way programmers wrote programs, then the first woodpecker would destroy civilization.
Are the coordinates available? I'd enjoy seeing the primary source, such as it is.
From the "confirmation photo" in TFA, all I was able to confirm is that... yes, there are rocks in Saudi Arabia.
UP TO 9000?
That's not so impressive...
If you find the ark, don't look in it. Seriously, don't look into it.
-Ours is the wisdom of Solomon, the magic of Merlyn, the fall of Icaris.
...I have an idea for another Indiana Jones sequel.
It is very interesting to find such a site this way--but the place where they were found is probably among the worst.
....
....and despite having the government wealth to support cultural efforts--since the rise of Islam, they have shown little interest in preserving anything not connected with the Islamic faith.
As I read it,,,, S.A. has no normal tourist industry at all (leaving little hope of outsiders to ever see the sites or anything found there)
Having RTFA, there is absolutely no content in there.
There's no example photograph of what they saw through google earth (just an inscrutable picture of a pile of rocks), nothing about the history of why ancient peoples would have built this pattern of structure, not even a link to Wikipedia about anything.
Ok, well, they do link to google.com/earth, but seriously, could they have written less content?
--Joe
He originally got over 9000 but crushed his scouter, going
"What, 9000? There's no way that be right!"
You're right; all archeology is a waste of time. Better we burn all those mummies for fuel! It's not like we could learn anything about ourselves by studying them.
I've abandoned my search for truth; now I'm just looking for some useful delusions.
You _do_ know that similar forces, albeith slightly mutated, have been observed in Arizona as well?
http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&source=s_q&hl=en&geocode=&q=&aq=&sll=32.391848,-109.95276&sspn=0.03044,0.032616&g=32.391486,-109.952631&ie=UTF8&ll=32.391848,-109.95276&spn=0.03044,0.032616&t=h&z=15
Well a recognizable grave from 9000 years ago was probably well build. If people put in effort to build the grave well they were probably well off. If they were well off, they could afford to put artifacts in those graves. Those artifacts might enable us to learn something about their culture, about their skills, about their beliefs.
It comes down to whether we care about knowledge of ancient cultures or not. Some of us do, others don't.
Conversely, what's the significance of not learning all we can about them and their culture?
Göbekli Tepe
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G%C3%B6bekli_Tepe
11,500 years ago
9000 years? phhh;
Boston Tea Party: December 16, 1773
age of the universe:13.75 ±0.17 billion years
Just to keep things in perspective?
CC.
TaijiQuan (Huang, 5 loosenings)
better not tell nappa
I tried to drag the little guy in Google Maps over the location but it wouldn't show me anything. I'm just curious if someone knows if Google is down?
Get some knowledge, bro.
There have been analogs at other sites that have been explored and have been discovered to have been tombs.
Here's a nice article that explains a lot, with mention of these tombs, and tombs like them, near the end. The pictures help make it obvious that these could not be naturally occurring.
Pendant tombs (including crescent, teardrop, and keyhole tombs) are a pretty well-known phenomenon.
"Trolls they were, but filled with the evil will of their master: a fell race..." -- J.R.R. Tolkien on Olog-hai
Those artifacts might enable us to learn something about their culture, about their skills, about their beliefs.
This can't be stressed enough. There are literally massive examples of fairly advanced technology which we still have absolutely no idea how it was achieved. Furthermore, lots would be extremely difficult even using modern technology. A tiny subset,, while not beyond our current technology, is beyond our current tools; meaning specialized and truly massive cranes and tools would need to be created to imitate.
Many archaeologists believe there is knowledge to be learned by studying our past - and the evidence seems to support such notions.
Dammit, the new slashcode ate my link.
No more a tags?
http://www.saudiaramcoworld.com/issue/200904/desktop.archeology.htm
There's the link.
"Trolls they were, but filled with the evil will of their master: a fell race..." -- J.R.R. Tolkien on Olog-hai
I don't recall ever seeing tear drop shapes in naturally occurring river beds. I've seen quite a few dry ones here in Australia that are over 30 000 years old, none of them have tear drop shapes. You get circular shapes (billabongs) and curves, but the tip of a tear drop shape is far from natural in river courses.
So one post says it's dangerous to reveal this because thieves will ransack the sites, and another posts that says there is no useful information in the article. We have achieved equilibrium.
"From their birds-eye view he found 1977 potential archaeological sites"
The mass of glitter balls as seen from orbit thus proved the existence of the Lost Disco of Jeddah.
Cthulhu fhtagn!
Ronald said nothing. He flung himself from the room, flung himself upon his horse, and rode madly off in all directions.
Wonder how well this is going to go with the Saudi government. They are pretty touchy about archaeology that pre-dates the Islamic era. For those earlier times, they use the term, IIRC, "time of ignorance" and are reluctant to allow too much knowledge about past times, especially if it is something more advanced, such as a great trading city. I have read about (and the reference escapes me now) where they were ok as long as the research stayed obscure (journals) but once it became more widely know (i.e. popular press), they started to cut off access to the sites. A "treasure trove" might contradict "ignorance".
Seriously, what is the significance of finding a 9000 year old grave? We know people existed 9000 years ago. We also know they're all dead. It's not news.
Turn in your nerd card, leave the clubhouse, and don't let the door hit you in the ass on the way out.
The correlation between ignorance of statistics and using "correlation is not causation" as an argument is close to 1.
the link in a tag
"Dudes, you're getting excited about a pile of stones!"
Dude, It's archeology.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
Seriously, what is the significance of finding a 9000 year old grave? We know people existed 9000 years ago. We also know they're all dead. It's not news.
The Xians don't think that. Earth is 6000 years old. remember that.
Be seeing you...
"Given enough eyeballs, all tombs are shallow."
steveha
lf(1): it's like ls(1) but sorts filenames by extension, tersely
That reminds me of the news stories of Taliban blowing up Buddha statues.
I listen to both RIAA and non-RIAA stuff if I like the music, tangential business/politics nonwithstanding.
My point being, it's not the pile of stones that is significant, it's what is (possibly) inside. Should they be carefully excavated? Of course. But I'm not going to get excited until they find something of archeological value buried underneath those stones. Some of them may very well be the equivalent of Capone's Vaults.
I've abandoned my search for truth; now I'm just looking for some useful delusions.
I suppose you'll also determine what is of value? The tombs themselves are of great value, excavated or not.
Then again, you don't seem to care about the impact this will have, whether they contain a few bones or the riches of a tribe, on our current written history. This could change quite a few text books.
I suppose unless it's a new Android release or a new processor you really don't care right?
Exactly. That's why we really need to find an intact vimana ship, so that we can regain the secret of anti-gravity technology.
Some of them believe it's 6500 years old.
They're called "fields". They're places where people grow things called "crops".
This is one case where security through obscurity might actually work.
As long as only the white hats knew about the exploit, they could go there and secretly study the sites. Now that it's public knowledge, it will be a race between the grave robbers and the fanatic muslims to destroy the sites.