Stephen Colbert with Space Archaeologist, Sarah Parcak

[Minimalist]

http://www.rawstory.com/2016/01/watch-s ... ah-parcak/

Describing her work as if “Indiana Jones had a lovechild With Google Earth,” Parcak described finding the sites of 17 potential pyramids in Egypt, 3,100 missing settlements, and over a thousand lost tombs.

[kbs2244]

With that kind of money I guess we have a new professional title.

[Minimalist]

She did find Tanis.

That's gotta count for something.

[kbs2244]

I am not taking anything away from her.

In fact, I applaud her use of new technology.

[circumspice]

What constitutes 'missing'?

The locals have know about these settlements all along. They've been robbing them of building materials for untold generations & probably conducting treasure hunts for just as long.

Sometimes archaeologists like to pretend that something is 'missing' because they didn't know about it personally. (unless & until it's 'discovered' by an archaeologist)

What a crock.

[Minimalist]

You mean like...

[Cognito]

The locals have know about these settlements all along. They've been robbing them of building materials for untold generations & probably conducting treasure hunts for just as long.

True enough. However, the locals had no idea what they were looting for building materials and any treasure hunt is nothing more than a crap shoot. Most valuables would have been stolen in antiquity.

The value in her work is the synthesis of existing and available data into something coherent for identification of previously unexplored sites. She didn't discover anything new, she just categorized and organized the process quite efficiently. Identifying Tanis is no small feat. It was always there, but archaeologists couldn't find it because they couldn't see it ... until now.

[kbs2244]

So the consensus is that the locals don't know the history of where they live?

[Minimalist]

They weren't living there when Tanis was a going concern.

[Cognito]

Which is why we can confidently assume that 90% of archaeologically interesting artifacts and structures are below sea level in this day and age: they are out of sight, submerged, somewhere, everywhere on the continental shelves across the planet. Where ever there was human activity.

The continental shelves would have been great areas to settle in the LGM with plenty of fuel available and game to hunt. Hopefully, the technology can be transferred to underwater also, although I'm not certain what type of bio-signature would be given by underwater plants, etc. due to the proximity of an ancient settlement.

There must be countless surprises hidden under eons of mud and sludge. BTW, welcome Lily!

[circumspice]

And yet, some place names persist, sometimes still recognizable a few millennia later. There are even local oral traditions identifying a settlement correctly in some rare cases. So yeah, sometimes the locals do know the local heritage.

[Minimalist]

They weren't living there when Tanis was a going concern.

Wasn't that where the Sea Peoples tried to settle around 1200 BC?

First off, welcome into the light, Lily.

Tanis was later than the Sea People. The tale written on the temple wall of Medinet-Habu is from Rameses III and dates to the 12th century BC whereas Tanis was capital of the 21st dynasty perhaps a century later.

The tale of a great Egyptian victory over the Sea People seems at odds with the rest of history as it unfolded in the rest of the 12th century BC. For such a great victory, Egypt lost its empire in Canaan and began a millennium-long death spiral which ended at Actium in 31 BC. Normally, nations that win great victories do not wither away as a result.

Since the Sea People did not build temples and write down their victories it seems that a more nuanced evaluation of the battle is that Egypt survived and was crippled as a result. The Sea Peoples occupied Canaan. The Egyptian administrative center at Beth Shean was burned and abandoned c 1150 BC...shortly after the Battle. In the words of French Marshal Saxe, after Fontenoy:

We have won a victory, but may I never see such another.

[kbs2244]

IOW "We cannot survive another victory like this."

[Minimalist]

Reminds me of us in Iraq.

[Cognito]

The tale of a great Egyptian victory over the Sea People seems at odds with the rest of history as it unfolded in the rest of the 12th century BC. For such a great victory, Egypt lost its empire in Canaan and began a millennium-long death spiral which ended at Actium in 31 BC. Normally, nations that win great victories do not wither away as a result.

Yes, the Egyptians were able to repulse the Sea Peoples, see: http://www.phoenician.org/sea_peoples.htm

However, the Egyptians would have also lost much of their trade network due to the destruction of most other empires in the region by the Sea Peoples (i.e. pirates). It appears that the Bronze Age collapse was accompanied by a prolonged period of severe drought in Egypt that some attribute to the Hekla-3 eruption in Iceland, see: http://www.aldokkan.com/egypt/ramses3.htm