Ancient Egyptian structure discovered from space
These are some images of what was found, including a 3D map of the structure and see ancient artificats
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Published
Egyptian scientists have discovered a a large structure beneath the River Nile that they reckon is 2600 years old.
The discovery was made using satellites while the researchers were studying the ancient and sacred city of Buto in Egypt, which is close to what we know now as Tell el-Fara'in.
While they'd been excavating the area for some years, the lower layers were proving difficult to get to.
So, satellites were used to produce images of what might be beneath the surface.
Where were they looking?
Wadjet was often show in cobra form, like on this ancient Egyptian tomb
Legend has it that Buto was the home of the Egyptian goddess Wadjet.
The cobra goddess' name means 'green one', and she was their local guardian, as well as the goddess for all of Lower Egypt.
Over the years Buto was occupied by different groups of people who fought over it, and was destroyed and rebuilt a number of times.
As a result, there are lots of layers that show what the city was like at different points in history.
What did they find?
The scientists used the European Space Agency's (ESA) Sentinel-1 satellite, which uses microwaves to bounce against surfaces and reveal what gets reflected back.
They spotted something big beneath the ground, so to investigate further, they used electrical currents to chart a map that the researchers could then read.
First there was a layer of pottery and old stone, then, a huge structure dating back 2600 years, which may have included a temple due to some religious artefacts also seen in the area.
These Google Earth images show the location of the new discovery
But this wasn't the only interesting thing they found - underneath the building was a clean layer of sand.
This was interesting as it points to a building technique that people sometimes use today, being used thousands of years ago.
The area they studied is quite difficult to build on, as water constantly shifts the ground.
The sand helps anything on top of it not be affected by the water below.
Their findings were published in the journal Astro Gephysica.
Some limited digging was done after all the images had been studied, and fragments of pottery they found during this confirmed their suspicions.
The scientists are planning a return trip to see what else they can find deep underground.
-- Sent from my Linux system.
