Google Earth turns up archaeological find

I think this is so cool as I had originally wanted to do my MSc thesis on an AI expert system/neural net to automatically scan satellite imagery for possible unknown archaeological sites (I got the idea from the 1990 discovery via SAR (Synthetic Aperture Radar) of the long lost “Atlantis of the Sands”, Ubar and a similar system for astronomers for finding stellar objects). More info about Ubar (since lost cities are a bit of an obsession with me).

An Italian computer programmer was playing around with Google Earth and Google Maps checking out the area around his house.

His eye was caught by unusual ‘rectangular shadows’ nearby. Curious, he analysed the image further, and concluded that the lines must represent a buried structure of human origin. Eventually, he traced out what looked like the inner courtyards of a villa.

Mori, who describes the finding on his blog, Quellí Della Bassa, contacted archaeologists, including experts at the National Archaeological Museum of Parma. They confirmed the find. At first it was thought to be a Bronze Age village, but an inspection of the site turned up ceramic pieces that indicated it was a Roman villa.

Link

(via BoingBoing)