Zahi Hawass commented years ago that, in his opinion, 70% of the ruins of ancient Egypt were still buried under the sands. Partly this is due to the fact that the Nile has altered its course on occasion and areas which were important in antiquity are now off the beaten track.
The concept is not new: the city of Ubar was found using satellite photos in the Arabian desert and in Central America it has been used to pierce the jungle canopy looking for Mayan ruins. Even fundies waste their time looking for Noah's fucking ark with satellite photos.
To be sure this helps in identifying sites but one still needs to go in with a trained archaeological team to see what exactly it is. Detecting anomalies is one thing but until you dig down there you really don't know if it is a mastaba or a British Army Quonset hut from 1942. And, if you do find an archaeologically important site then you have to be ready to incur the costs of excavation and conservation and Egypt may not be in a position to do that at the moment. So, it is a useful tool to avoid wasting time but it doesn't tell us much about a site by itself.
The concept is not new: the city of Ubar was found using satellite photos in the Arabian desert and in Central America it has been used to pierce the jungle canopy looking for Mayan ruins. Even fundies waste their time looking for Noah's fucking ark with satellite photos.
To be sure this helps in identifying sites but one still needs to go in with a trained archaeological team to see what exactly it is. Detecting anomalies is one thing but until you dig down there you really don't know if it is a mastaba or a British Army Quonset hut from 1942. And, if you do find an archaeologically important site then you have to be ready to incur the costs of excavation and conservation and Egypt may not be in a position to do that at the moment. So, it is a useful tool to avoid wasting time but it doesn't tell us much about a site by itself.
