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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.
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.
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
Conversely, what's the significance of not learning all we can about them and their culture?
At least some of these tombs predate Muhammad by centuries. Saudis have never had much interest in such sites, and there is a sense that nothing good can come from the era they term jahilia ("ignorance"). Most archaeological study of pre-Islamic Arabia is carried out by Europeans and North Americans.
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
Revered as both are by Muslims, the prophet, Muhammad, is not the same as Allah. You're confusing Islam with the nonsense that is Christian dogma.
If you're aiming for self-righteously arrogant, at least get your facts straight.
As for "making a buck off him", that doesn't apply to providing an actual service. If you fake evidence of historical fact then yeah you're going to hell. Otherwise, you're just another businessman selling t-shirts and key chains.
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".
The point is that insulting someone else's religion serves no constructive purpose. You obviously are not going to change their mind or educate them by doing so. It can only serve to hurt their feelings and stoke the fires of hatred between different faiths -- so why do it?
I've abandoned my search for truth; now I'm just looking for some useful delusions.