A technology-wielding archeologist billed as a modern-world “Indiana Jones” on Monday won a coveted US$1 million TED prize for her work tracking antiquities and their looting.
Sarah Parcak was named winner of a 2016 TED Prize that provides US$1 million to kickstart a big-vision “wish,” and opens a door to call on the nonprofit organization’s innovative, influential and ingenious community of “tedsters.”
Parcak is to reveal her wish at an annual TED Conference in Vancouver in February.
“I am honored to receive the TED Prize, but it’s not about me; it’s about our field — and the thousands of men and women around the world, particularly in the Middle East, who are defending and protecting sites,” Parcak said. “The last four-and-a-half years have been horrific for archeology.”
Parcak bemoaned extensive looting and destruction at archeological sites that she has mapped using a method she created for processing satellite images. The archeologist she said she would use the TED Prize to rally the world to find and protect such treasures.
“At a moment when so many ancient sites are under threat — and being destroyed — it feels particularly poignant that we are awarding the TED Prize to a brilliant mind, committed to finding, sharing and protecting these gems,” TED Prize director Anna Verghese said.
Parcak was introduced to aerial photography through her grandfather’s use of it in forestry work.
She was studying Egyptology at Yale University when she began exploring the potential for using more modern tools to apply her grandfather’s approach to archeology, according to TED.
Parcak was pursuing an advanced degree at Cambridge University when she created a technique for processing infrared imagery from satellites that helped her detect undiscovered archeological sites in Egypt. She has since turned to mapping looting.
“TED is committed to the ancient tradition of storytelling and making it relevant to a modern, global audience,” Verghese said. “Sarah’s work honors that — she uses 21st-century technology to make the world’s ancient, invisible history visible once again.”
Parcak is a professor at the University of Alabama at Birmingham, where she founded the Laboratory for Global Observation.
She has won attention for her work satellite-mapping Egypt and uncovering hidden pyramids, tombs and settlements.
Parcak and her team have been credited with also discovering ancient sites in Europe, the Mediterranean and North America as well as extensively mapping looting in Egypt.
The annual TED Prize has grown from US$100,000 to US$1 million since it was first awarded in the year 2005, to U2 band leader Bono and his vision of fighting poverty and disease.
The list of previous winners includes oceans defender Sylvia Earle and StoryCorps founder Dave Isay, whose wish was to use smartphone applications to archive the spoken wisdom of humanity.
The TED community includes scientists, celebrities, politicians, artists and entrepreneurs. Since being born in California in 1984, the gathering has grown into a global forum for “ideas worth spreading.”
Nearly half of China’s major cities are suffering “moderate to severe” levels of subsidence, putting millions of people at risk of flooding, especially as sea levels rise, according to a study of nationwide satellite data released yesterday. The authors of the paper, published by the journal Science, found that 45 percent of China’s urban land was sinking faster than 3mm per year, with 16 percent at more than 10mm per year, driven not only by declining water tables, but also the sheer weight of the built environment. With China’s urban population already in excess of 900 million people, “even a small portion
‘IN A DIFFERENT PLACE’: The envoy first visited Shanghai, where he attended a Chinese basketball playoff match, and is to meet top officials in Beijing tomorrow US Secretary of State Antony Blinken yesterday arrived in China on his second visit in a year as the US ramps up pressure on its rival over its support for Russia while also seeking to manage tensions with Beijing. The US diplomat tomorrow is to meet China’s top brass in Beijing, where he is also expected to plead for restraint as Taiwan inaugurates president-elect William Lai (賴清德), and to raise US concerns on Chinese trade practices. However, Blinken is also seeking to stabilize ties, with tensions between the world’s two largest economies easing since his previous visit in June last year. At the
UNSETTLING IMAGES: The scene took place in front of TV crews covering the Trump trial, with a CNN anchor calling it an ‘emotional and unbelievably disturbing moment’ A man who doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire outside the courthouse where former US president Donald Trump is on trial has died, police said yesterday. The New York City Police Department (NYPD) said the man was declared dead by staff at an area hospital. The man was in Collect Pond Park at about 1:30pm on Friday when he took out pamphlets espousing conspiracy theories, tossed them around, then doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire, officials and witnesses said. A large number of police officers were nearby when it happened. Some officers and bystanders rushed
Beijing is continuing to commit genocide and crimes against humanity against Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities in its western Xinjiang province, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a report published on Monday, ahead of his planned visit to China this week. The State Department’s annual human rights report, which documents abuses recorded all over the world during the previous calendar year, repeated language from previous years on the treatment of Muslims in Xinjiang, but the publication raises the issue ahead of delicate talks, including on the war in Ukraine and global trade, between the top U.S. diplomat and Chinese