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When I was a child growing up in Maine,

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one of my favorite things to do

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was to look for sand dollars
on the seashores of Maine,

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because my parents told me
it would bring me luck.

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But you know, these shells,
they're hard to find.

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They're covered in sand,
they're difficult to see.

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However, over time,
I got used to looking for them.

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I started seeing shapes

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and patterns that helped me
to collect them.

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This grew into a passion
for finding things,

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a love for the past and archaeology.

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And eventually, when I started
studying Egyptology,

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I realized that seeing
with my naked eyes alone wasn't enough.

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Because all of the sudden, in Egypt,

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my beach had grown
from a tiny beach in Maine

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to one eight hundred miles long,

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next to the Nile.

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And my sand dollars had grown
to the size of cities.

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This is really what brought me
to using satellite imagery.

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For trying to map the past,
I knew that I had to see differently.

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So I want to show you an example
of how we see differently

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using the infrared.

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This is a site located
in the eastern Egyptian delta

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called Mendes.

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And the site visibly appears brown,

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but when we use the infrared

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and we process it, all of the sudden,

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using false color,

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the site appears as bright pink.

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What you are seeing

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are the actual chemical changes
to the landscape

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caused by the building
materials and activities

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of the ancient Egyptians.

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What I want to share with you today

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is how we've used satellite data

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to find an ancient Egyptian city,

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called Itjtawy,

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missing for thousands of years.

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Itjtawy was ancient Egypt's capital

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for over four hundred years,

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at a period of time
called the Middle Kingdom,

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about four thousand years ago.

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The site is located
in the Faiyum of Egypt,

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and the site is really important,

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because in the Middle Kingdom
there was this great renaissance

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for ancient Egyptian art,
architecture and religion.

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Egyptologists have always known
the site of Itjtawy

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was located somewhere near the pyramids
of the two kings who built it,

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indicated within the red circles here,

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but somewhere within
this massive flood plain.

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This area is huge --

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it's four miles by three miles in size.

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The Nile used to flow
right next to the city of Itjtawy,

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and as it shifted and changed
and moved over time to the east,

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it covered over the city.

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So, how do you find a buried city

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in a vast landscape?

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Finding it randomly
would be the equivalent

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of locating a needle in a haystack,

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blindfolded, wearing baseball mitts.

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(Laughter)

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So what we did is
we used NASA topography data

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to map out the landscape,
very subtle changes.

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We started to be able to see
where the Nile used to flow.

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But you can see in more detail,
and even more interesting,

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this very slight raised area

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seen within the circle up here

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which we thought could possibly be
the location of the city of Itjtawy.

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So we collaborated
with Egyptian scientists

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to do coring work, which you see here.

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When I say coring, it's like ice coring,

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but instead of layers of climate change,

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you're looking for layers
of human occupation.

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And, five meters down,

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underneath a thick layer of mud,

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we found a dense layer of pottery.

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What this shows is that
at this possible location of Itjtawy,

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five meters down,

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we have a layer of occupation
for several hundred years,

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dating to the Middle Kingdom,

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dating to the exact period of time
we think Itjtawy is.

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We also found work stone --

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carnelian, quartz and agate

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that shows that there was
a jeweler's workshop here.

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These might not look like much,

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but when you think
about the most common stones

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used in jewelry from the Middle Kingdom,

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these are the stones that were used.

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So, we have a dense layer of occupation

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dating to the Middle Kingdom at this site.

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We also have evidence
of an elite jeweler's workshop,

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showing that whatever was there
was a very important city.

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No Itjtawy was here yet,

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but we're going to be
returning to the site

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in the near future to map it out.

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And even more importantly,

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we have funding to train young Egyptians
in the use of satellite technology

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so they can be the ones
making great discoveries as well.

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So I wanted to end with my favorite quote
from the Middle Kingdom --

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it was probably written
at the city of Itjtawy

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four thousand years ago.

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"Sharing knowledge
is the greatest of all callings.

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There's nothing like it in the land."

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So as it turns out,
TED was not founded in 1984 AD.

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(Laughter)

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Making ideas actually started in 1984 BC

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at a not-lost-for-long city,
found from above.

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It certainly puts finding seashells
by the seashore in perspective.

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Thank you very much.

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(Applause)

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Thank you.

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(Applause)