Musings from the CU Suite

Written by Anthony Demangone

As a kid, there was nothing better than the Indiana Jones movies.

In fact, the Raiders of the Lost Ark was the first movie I saw without my parents. Steve Pennay, Jamie Wecker and I hooted and hollered down at the Keystone Theater in Towanda. Seated in the front row, we were on top of the world. 

When Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade came out, of course I was there. And it didn't disappoint. 

Perhaps the biggest jaw dropper for me was when Indy came upon an ancient city, carved out of the desert. 

For years, I just assumed it was a movie set, until someone told me the truth. Those scenes were shot at ancient cit of Petra. Discovered in 1812, the city has been explored for more two centuries, uncovering numerous treasures.  Google did a fantastic job of helping you explore the ancient city. Check that out here.

Just think about it - hundreds of archaeologists have been pouring over that land for more than 200 years. What possibly could be left to discover?

Plenty.

Recently, an archaeologist was using Google Earth to look at the site from space. She was looking for anything that didn't look normal. Circles. Squares. Anything that might be man-made. Well, she found something. The following comes directly from the archaeologist. 

When I initially looked at it, I dismissed it. I'm pretty skeptical. But I thought, well, it's not going to do any harm to share that with (my team). They're going to go out and survey anyway, so I gave the data to them. And I was just blown away when they came back to me with the results...

You know, I did not think that we could ever find something this large and significant and important really so close to the city center. I've just - still surprised even though I was heavily involved in this project that previous archaeologists had missed it.

And it's interesting. I'm now hearing from different specialists who know the site well, and they've actually said, gosh, I - you know, I wondered. I walked over to that place, but I wasn't sure, which goes to show you that you need to pull back and kind of get this bird's-eye view to get a new perspective on sites when you're not sure if something is there or not.

And what she found wasn't tiny - it is larger than an Olympic-sized swimming pool.

How many times had others noticed something in that area but simply assumed that others had run it down?

I'm not going to judge them, because I'm guilty of similar things.

Our gut tells us something, or we notice something out of the corner of our eye. Do we speak up? Maybe we shouldn't. We're not an expert, after all, right? If our outside consultant says it's fine, who are we to judge? Our eyes must be deceiving us.

But then again, it only can be a new discovery if everyone else missed it before. 

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