

Her team also identified a large ceremonial platform in Petra and worked on satellite mapping the whole of Peru for the crowdsourcing project called GlobalXplorer. Upon subsequent ground investigation, it turned out not to be a Viking site or of any archeological significance. The same year, satellite images from Parcak and her team claimed to have identified the second-known Viking site in North America, located in Newfoundland. In 2016, she was the recipient of Smithsonian magazine's American Ingenuity Award in the History category. In 2015, she won the $1 million TED Prize for 2016. The Egyptian National Authority for Remote Sensing and Space Sciences does the same thing. The Egyptian government decided to "develop a nationwide satellite imagery project to monitor archaeological sites from space and protect them from looting and illegal house construction and other encroachments.". None of the 17 pyramids Parcak claimed to have discovered have ever been found. Zahi Hawass, criticized the report, saying that this was "not accurate" and the BBC apologized. The Minister of State for Antiquities, Dr. In 2011 a BBC news report stated that she had "discovered" 17 previously unknown pyramids in Egypt as well as more than 1,000 tombs and 3,000 settlements. In 2009, satellite imagery was used to find holes in the ground as evidence of how looting had escalated in Egypt.

In 2007, she founded the Laboratory for Global Observation at the University of Alabama at Birmingham. According to Parcak, this approach reduces the time and cost for determining archaeological sites compared to surface detection. They used satellite imagery to look for water sources and archaeological sites. Greg Mumford, she directs Survey and Excavation Projects in the Fayoum, Sinai, and Egypt's East Delta. Satellites recording infrared wavelengths are able to distinguish differentiations in plant's chlorophyll, which can distinguish the less healthy plants that grow over buried structures. Parcak's work consists of trying to find minute differences in topography, geology, and plant life to explore sites from a variety of cultures, although Egypt is her specialty. Career įrom 2003 to 2004, Parcak used satellite images and surface surveys to “discover” 17 new pyramids and sites of archaeological interest, some dating back to 3,000 B.C. ĭuring her undergraduate studies at Yale University, Parcak participated in her first of many digs in Egypt as well as a remote sensing course. She is a professor of Anthropology at the University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB) prior to that she was a teacher of Egyptian art and history at the University of Wales, Swansea. Parcak was born in Bangor, Maine, and received her bachelor's degree in Egyptology and Archaeological Studies from Yale University in 2001, and her Ph.D. In partnership with her husband, Greg Mumford, she directs survey and excavation projects in the Faiyum, Sinai, and Egypt's East Delta. She is a professor of Anthropology and director of the Laboratory for Global Observation at the University of Alabama at Birmingham. Sarah Helen Parcak is an American archaeologist and Egyptologist, who has used satellite imagery to identify potential archaeological sites in Egypt, Rome and elsewhere in the former Roman Empire. Professor at the University of Alabama at Birmingham, Archaeologist, Egyptologist, Remote Sensing Archaeologist
