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SALT LAKE CITY — For hundreds of years, archaeologists have been looking for (and finding) amazing ancient sites in the one of the most historically important areas in the ancient world: Egypt. But it seems like anyone with a laptop can now discover something seemingly lost to eternity.
Google Earth aficionado and apparent amateur "satellite archaeology researcher" Angela Micol has claimed to have found pyramids in Egypt that have never been seen before. And she used nothing but Google Earth. Is that really possible?
Two sites, close to the fertile area surrounding the Nile, appear to show pyramid-like structures when seen from the satellite images that make up Google Earth's exhaustive documentation of the planet's surface. One site shows four mounds next to a much larger and much more striking triangular shaped plateau. About 90 miles away, a second site shows several mounds next to a pyramid-like mound with a clearly square-shaped plateau at the top. Some features of the sites do indeed look very much like something man made.
Micol issued a release Aug. 10 showing the pyramid sites and commentary, claiming that the sites have been verified as undiscovered by pyramid expert Nabil Selim. However, it appears that the sites have been known since at least 2008, according to other posts on the website Google Earth Anomalies which show and discuss the features. When and how this verification took place and what institution Selim works for was not mentioned.
It's not clear whether the sites are the real deal or not. Both sites are very close to civilization. The triange site is very close to what look like farms, and the square site is just a few kilometers from a known archaeological site, Abu Sidhum. It seems to stretch imagination that a pyramid would not also have been discovered so close to where researchers had already spent so much time.
The sites are quite striking, but just how much of a "satellite archaeology" expert Micol really is remains to be seen. Her site, Google Earth Anomalies, where she blogs and posts about strange Google Earth features, isn't a well-recognized or authoritative source and what if any training she has is never mentioned. It seems that the site and her research tends toward the conspiracy theory, New Age side of amateur science. Credentials for Nabil Selim were also impossible to find. But that doesn't rule out the possibility that she has in fact discovered something novel.
"The images speak for themselves. It's very obvious what the sites may contain but field research is needed to verify they are, in fact, pyramids and evidence should be gathered to determine their origins," Micol said on her site.
Meanwhile, geoarchaeologists speaking to Fox News have said that the sites are nothing more than naturally occurring buttes formed by normal erosion processes that just happen to look very similar to pyramids.
"It seems that Angela Micol is one of the so-called 'pyridiots' who see pyramids everywhere," said James Harrell, professor emeritus of archaeological geology at the University of Toledo,
Whether or not verification will take place is unclear, but it will be interesting, no doubt, to see what will become of this amateur contribution to Egyptology and archaeology. Check out the sites and see what you think.
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