To excavate a pyramid is the dream of every archaeologist.
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.
You just pull back for hundreds of miles using the satellite imagery, and all of a sudden this invisible world become visible. You're actually able to see settlements and tombs - and even things like buried pyramids - that you might not otherwise be able to see.
I already find pyramids from space. Is there anything cooler than that?
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 people initially think of the term 'space archaeologist,' they think, 'Oh, it's someone who uses satellites to look for alien settlements on Mars or in outer space,' but the opposite is true - we're actually looking for evidence of past human life on planet earth.
We're literally just beginning to learn how to use satellites to find sites. More and more people are realizing there's this incredible tool.
I'm an Egyptologist. I'm a remote sensing specialist, and I'm a space archaeologist.
When I was a child growing up in Maine, one of my favorite things to do was to look for sand dollars on the seashores of Maine, because my parents told me it would bring me luck. But you know, these shells, they're hard to find. They're covered in sand. They're difficult to see.
I think archaeologists are stuck, and we are losing our past at a very rapid rate. Tens of thousands of sites will be lost, and we've only unveiled a tiny percent of the past.
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.