Thousands of Tombs in Saudi Desert Spotted From Space

Live Science ^ | February 15, 2011 | Rebecca Kessler

[decimon]

Little is known about the archaeology of Saudi Arabia, as the government has historically forbid aerial photographs of the landscape and religious sensitivities have made access tricky. But Google Earth is changing that. Satellite images available via the Web-based 3-D map program show that large portions of the country hold a wealth of archaeological remains that predate Islam and may be several thousand years old.

Researchers recently discovered nearly 2,000 tombs by peering through one high-resolution "window" at a rocky lava field east of the city of Jeddah — all without having to set foot in the Saudi desert.

Judging by the sheer number of stone ruins identified in Saudi Arabia, as well as in other research in Jordan, there may well be a million such sites scattered throughout the Arabian Peninsula, said David Kennedy, an archaeologist at the University of Western Australia who led the study.

[Windflier]

Aw, shucks. And here I was hoping we were going to sling around that ol’ anthropology jive.

Man, I'm doing good to post even a few comments on the forum in the last week. I've finally run into something that is even more addictive than FR. Her name is Jackie Evancho.

http://www.youtube.com/user/SevenDeuce72#p/a/u/2/E__3xqxvFgo

[worst-case scenario]

Wow! I wasn’t familiar with the girl. When she started singing and that voice came out of her -— I practically spit out my coffee. What a voice! It’s hard to believe she only placed 2nd in AGT.

Sarah Brightman looked like a giantess next to her.

Thanks for the link!

[Windflier]

Wow! I wasn’t familiar with the girl. When she started singing and that voice came out of her -— I practically spit out my coffee. What a voice!

Yours is a typical reaction to hearing Jackie for the first time. When I first saw her, I forgot everything I was doing, and hit the replay button a dozen times before I could even tell my wife what I'd witnessed.

I think it's actually better that she didn't "win" AGT (in all truth, she really did). She was immediately picked up by Columbia/Sony records for a $5.5 million dollar contract, and they produced her first four song CD just in time for last Christmas. It went platinum. She now holds the record for the youngest person to ever have a platinum album.

Her first full-length CD (which she calls an "LP") will come out this spring.

Enjoy!