Satellite archæology: a critique.

Dear Diary,

I haven’t slept much in these past couple of weeks. A couple of hours here and there at best, and even that was a flitful restless sleep. The hornets finally resurfaced in the cabin on the last night I ‘slept’ in there, and since landing here, sleep has been as elusive as peace.

Still, we made it away, Ronulus and I. Now comes an eleven hour series of bus journeys and I am ready to finally get home, safe and sound, God willing.

Of all the things I miss - Gertrude the guitar, Saint Lillian the Spanish guitar, Betty the banjuitar; Street Musician, the Blind Guitarist, Loch Lomond - it is my books I miss the most. Notwithstanding certain peoples I may or may not miss, not having my personal reference library to hand has been a distinct disadvantage when preparing this current archæology essay. Yesterday I ‘freaked out’ at Delli’s when I lost my archæology notes. It was awful. I was in such a mess about losing them, but of course, found them eventually. I managed to get a few books from Delli on the Hittites, Phœnecians, and other ancient peoples. Jolly good!

I hope somewhere nice is open in town when I get there, I’m famished. A nice cup of tea and a full English is in order I think (or at least, on my budget: a coffee and a muffin - everybody likes a good muffin).

I watched not a bad archæology documentary - Rome’s Lost Empire - but as with so many programmes that feature Dr. Sarah Parcak, it is fatally flawed. Here’s why.

Dr. Parcak has the most excellent technology at her disposal, satellite archæology, Lidar, geo-physics, but I have never actually seen her do any digging. The primary benefit of having ground penetrating readouts to analyse is knowing where to dig, without just simply putting the blade of the spade into the earth at random, hoping for the best. In all of the archæology programmes I have seen with Dr. Parcak, she makes these ‘incredible’ discoveries, visits the site, and finds nothing there but broken surface remains. Perhaps it is to do with permission, the country’s laws on archæological site digging clearance or something like that, but to me the principle benefit of such technology is completely wasted, being only half utilised. Surely it stands to reason that if one knows the whereabouts of newly discovered pyramids or Rome’s light-house of Portus then it makes perfect sense to do something, act on this information, instead of visiting the site, finding next to nothing on the surface, and driving off somewhere else.