Satellite tech that will help stop looting of treasure

Looting of ancient treasures at archaeological sites and excavations have taken place for eons, without nothing much done about it. Very recently, technological innovations have opened new doors to potentially curb looting, and also nab the perpetrators.

A pioneering ‘space archaeologist’ , and founding director of the University of Alabama’s Laboratory for Global Observation in Birmingham and an associate professor there, Sarah H Parcak  says for the first time technology has gotten to the point where we can map looting.

Sarah’s laptop brims with satellite images pitted with thousands of black dots, evidence of excavations across Egypt where looters have tunneled in search of mummies, jewellery and other valuables prized by collectors, advertised in auction catalogs and trafficked on eBay, a criminal global black market estimated in the billions of dollars.

Satellite eyes in the sky, which have transformed the worldwide search for buried archaeological treasures, are now being used to spy on the archenemies of cultural preservation: armies of looters who are increasingly pockmarking ancient sites with illicit digs and making off with priceless patrimony. Nowhere is the tracking effort more advanced than Egypt, where a programme co-led by Parcak and funded by the National Science Foundation and National Geographic has targeted thievery that, experts say, worsened after the chaos of the 2011 revolution.

And now, in a powerful endorsement of work that may bolster efforts to cripple looting across the Middle East and the rest of the world, TED, the non-profit forum with the motto ‘ideas worth spreading’, was held recently to announce that Parcak, 36, has won its most prestigious award — a $1 million grant to develop a project of her choice.
Details of the project are to be revealed in a live broadcast of her talk at the TED conference in February in Vancouver, British Columbia.

Looting and destruction in Iraq and Syria by the Islamic State has drawn more attention in recent months. And cultural thievery remains a problem in Egypt, where last week the government seized 1,124 stolen artifacts at the port of Damietta. They were en route to Thailand, according to the Al Bawaba news service.

The use of satellites to thwart looting joins a growing list of ways technology is serving archaeology. NASA last month made available detailed photographs by the satellite contractor DigitalGlobe, which showed colossal earthworks thousands of years old and recently spotted on the Kazakhstan steppe.

Aircraft beam laser signals, called LiDAR, that penetrate ground cover to reveal buried cities. Poland has digitised information on more than 63,000 objects stolen in that country and still missing since World War II.

“The ones that stay open are the ones I worry about. It’s like a supermarket.” Speaking of the looters, Parcak added, “They tunnel in and stay secret and I can't see what they’re doing.” But the problem extends far beyond Egypt. “You think looting is bad in Egypt, look at Peru,” she said.

“India, China. I’ve been told in China there are over a quarter-million archaeological sites, and most have been looted. This is a global problem of massive proportions, and we don’t know the scale.”

Director General of the Repatriation Department of the Egyptian Minstry of Antiquities Ali Ahmed said,“We have a major challenge so we are looking for an out-of-the box solution... and Sarah’s work is part of that.”