I am part of a network of people monitoring what's happening at ancient sites in Iraq and Syria - from space. We can see clearly the destruction. Sarah Parcak More Quotes by Sarah Parcak More Quotes From Sarah Parcak A picture is worth a thousand words. A satellite image is worth a million dollars. Sarah Parcak image worth picture words Archaeology holds all the keys to understanding who we are and where we come from. Sarah Parcak come where who understanding I dig in the sand, and I play with pretty pictures, so I never really left kindergarten. Sarah Parcak pictures never sand play In archaeology, context is everything. Objects allow us to reconstruct the past. Taking artifacts from a temple or an ancient private house is like emptying out a time capsule. Sarah Parcak temple house time past If you look at the Nile on a map of Egypt, you don't think it has moved very much, but the river is very violent and has moved over time. Sarah Parcak river look you time When you think about archaeology, archaeology is the only field that allows us to tell the story of 99 percent of our history prior to 3,000 B.C. and writing. Sarah Parcak story think you history 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. Sarah Parcak parents look me you 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. Sarah Parcak think you space world Less than 1 percent of ancient Egypt has been discovered and excavated. With population pressures, urbanization, and modernization encroaching, we're in a race against time. Why not use the most advanced tools we have to map, quantify, and protect our past? Sarah Parcak egypt race time past To excavate a pyramid is the dream of every archaeologist. Sarah Parcak pyramid every dream We have so many issues with overpopulation and urbanization and site looting. And this isn't just Egypt. This is everywhere in the world, even in America. So we only have a limited amount of time left before many archaeological sites all over the world are destroyed. Sarah Parcak egypt time america world Satellites record data in different parts of the light spectrum that we can't see. And it's that information that allows satellites to be so powerful in terms of looking at things like vegetation health, finding different kinds of geology that may indicate an oil deposit or some kind of mineralogical deposit that can be mined. Sarah Parcak looking information health light There's even an aircraft sensor system that sends down hundreds of thousands of pulses of light measured at different return rates. It allows you to literally strip away vegetation and see entire cities beneath the rain forest canopy. This is the unbelievable future of archaeology. Sarah Parcak you future light rain 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... It's the most exciting time in history to be an archaeologist. Sarah Parcak help time history world If you really want to be a good archaeologist, you have to understand ancient DNA; you have to understand chemical analysis to figure out the composition of ancient pots. You have to be able to study human remains. You need to be able to do computer processing and, in some cases, computer programming. Sarah Parcak good understand you want We've found that patterns of site looting have increased between 500 and 1000 percent since the start of the Arab Spring. Now this is a problem as old as human beings. People were looting tombs 5,000 years ago in Egypt as soon as people were buried, but the problem is only getting worse and worse. Sarah Parcak start problem spring people We've got to map all of our ancient history before it's gone because, let's face it, if we don't have a common heritage to share, something to get excited about, then what are we living for? Sarah Parcak face living heritage history 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. Sarah Parcak find more beginning people Looting has an immense impact on our ability to understand our global cultural heritage; once these objects are gone, so too is our chance of piecing together humanity's shared story. Sarah Parcak understand chance humanity together The most exciting part of what I do is understanding the scale of what we don't know. There are just countless archaeological sites all over the world, and one of the most important and best ways of finding them is using digital technology. Sarah Parcak best technology understanding world
