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CHICAGO (AFP) - Archaeologists using radar imagery have shown that an ancient Cambodian settlement centered on the celebrated temple of Angkor Wat was far more extensive than previously thought, a study released Monday said. The medieval settlement surrounding Angkor, the one-time capital of the illustrious Khmer empire which flourished between the ninth and 14th centuries, covered a 3,000 square kilometer area (1,158 square miles). The urban complex was at least three times larger than archaeologists had previously suspected and easily the largest pre-industrial urban area of its kind, eclipsing comparable developments such as Tikal a Classic Maya "city" in Guatemala....

SYDNEY, Australia — Airborne laser technology has uncovered a network of roadways and canals, illustrating a bustling ancient city linking Cambodia’s famed Angkor Wat temple complex. The discovery was announced late Monday in a peer-reviewed paper released early by the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. The laser scanning revealed a previously undocumented formally planned urban landscape integrating the 1,200-year-old temples. The Angkor temple complex, Cambodia’s top tourist destination and one of Asia’s most famous landmarks, was constructed in the 12th century during the mighty Khmer empire. Angkor Wat is a point of deep pride for Cambodians, appearing...

In the year 802 C.E., the founder of the medieval Khmer empire, Jayavarman II, anointed himself "king of the world." In laying claim to such a grandiose title, he was a little ahead of his time: It would be another few centuries before the Khmers built Earth's largest religious monument, Angkor Wat, the crowning glory of a kingdom that stood in what is today northwestern Cambodia. But Jayavarman II had good reason to believe that his nascent kingdom, in the sacred Kulen hills northeast of Angkor, was a record-holder. Airborne laser scanning technology, or LiDAR, has revealed the imprint of...

Jungle-Covered Ruins May Hold Surprising Hints by Brian Thomas, M.S. The ancient and elaborate temple at Angkor Wat is not the only interesting site to see when visiting Cambodia. Archaeologists have been discovering hundreds of temples, many still buried beneath thick jungle growth, strewn across the whole surrounding area. A picture is emerging of buildings that connected a thriving society across a broad region. Could soon-to-be uncovered stone carvings somehow intersect with biblical history? Australian archaeologist Damian Evans employed "lidar" technology to find new temples far faster than the old way—that of hacking through jungle and hoping to hit some...

Archaeologists in Cambodia have found multiple, previously undocumented medieval cities not far from the ancient temple city of Angkor Wat, the Guardian can reveal, in groundbreaking discoveries that promise to upend key assumptions about south-east Asia’s history. The Australian archaeologist Dr Damian Evans, whose findings will be published in the Journal of Archaeological Science on Monday, will announce that cutting-edge airborne laser scanning technology has revealed multiple cities between 900 and 1,400 years old beneath the tropical forest floor, some of which rival the size of Cambodia’s capital, Phnom Penh.

Satellites hovering above Egypt have zoomed in on a 1,600-year-old metropolis, archaeologists say. Images captured from space pinpoint telltale signs of previous habitation in the swatch of land 200 miles south of Cairo, which digging recently confirmed as an ancient settlement dating from about 400 A.D. The find is part of a larger project aiming to map as much of ancient Egypt's archaeological sites, or "tells," as possible before they are destroyed or covered by modern development. "It is the biggest site discovered so far," said project leader Sarah Parcak of the University of Alabama at Birmingham. "Based on the...

Seventeen lost pyramids are believed to have been found in Egypt by a team of space archaeologists from Alabama, according to a report. Sarah Parcak and her team at a NASA-sponsored laboratory at the University of Alabama at Birmingham made the discoveries using a satellite survey, and also found more than 1,000 tombs and 3,000 ancient settlements in infrared images that show up buildings underground, BBC News reported. The BBC said that two of the suspected pyramids had been confirmed by initial excavations. "We were very intensely doing this research for over a year. I could see the data as...

Space: The Final [Archaeological] Frontier Volume 57 Number 6, November/December 2004 by P.J. Capelotti Illustrations by James Jean Summer 2205 During a preliminary survey of late twenty-first-century mining outposts in the asteroid belt, Dr. Gan Shishu, director of the Institute for Space Archaeology at the China National Space Administration, recognized a unique opportunity. Leaving her field team as they continued to document the massive Halliburton gantry on asteroid Q36, she piloted her team's one-person archaeoprobe L.S.B. Leakey toward a strange-looking artifact nearby that had been drifting in heliocentric orbit for more than two centuries. Science fiction? Not any longer....

Aerial flood maps of Britain are revealing more than just at-risk regions - they have also led to the discovery of several Roman roads. Amateur archaeologists have been able to use the flood-mapping technology to trace the paths of Roman roads which have remained buried under the land for some 1,600 years. The aerial flood maps were created by aircraft equipped with laser scanners which measure the distance between the aircraft and the ground. Using light detection and ranging (Lidar) technology, the Environment Agency was able to detect the areas of Britain which are most at risk of flooding. The...

A view of the Rio Platano biosphere reserve in Honduras, where explorers over the past century have claimed several times to have spotted the White City Honduras said Thursday it was starting a major archeological dig for a mysterious, ancient "White City" supposedly hidden in jungle in its northeast that explorers and legends have spoken of for centuries. "Today a group of archeologists and scientists is traveling to the White City to start excavations in coming days," President Juan Orlando Hernandez said in a speech to private universities. The hope is that they will uncover incontrovertible proof of the existence...

The jungle-choked remains of a "lost city", abandoned by a mysterious civilisation several centuries ago and long fabled for reports of its gold and "monkey children", have been uncovered in the depths of the rainforests of Honduras. A team of American and Honduran archaeologists, aided by the bushcraft and survival skills of former British SAS soldiers, has just emerged from one of the most remote locations on Earth with news of their stunning discovery. The expedition was seeking the site of the legendary "White City", also known as the "City of the Monkey God", a goal for Western explorers since...

Underneath the Honduran rain forests' dense canopy of trees, a team of researchers think they may have found the ruins of la Ciudad Blanca - the White City --- a legendary city of gold sought by Spanish conquistador Hernan Cortes. In a 1526 letter to Spanish Emperor Charles V, Cortes described an area in the interior of Honduras with riches far greater than those of Mexico. In 1839, according to a report by Nature World News, American diplomat and aspiring archaeologist John Lloyd Sturges went out in search of ruins in western Honduras and found the Mayan city of Copan,...

The Google Map of eastern Honduras is almost blank. A vast and virtually unexplored rainforest region known as the Mosquitia covers around 32,000 square miles, home to dense jungle, hostile terrain and the terrifying-sounding jumping viper. Legend has it that somewhere beneath the forest canopy lies the ancient city of Ciudad Blanca – and now archaeologists think they may have found it. Tomorrow in Cancun, Mexico, an interdisciplinary group of scientists from fields including archaeology, anthropology and geology will appear at the American Geophysical Union’s annual conference to present the technology that has allowed them to discover a “lost world”...

The hidden ruins of an ancient lagoon city that was the ancestor of Venice have been unearthed by scientists using satellite imaging. The outlines are clearly visible about three feet below the earth in what is now open countryside... Paolo Mozzi, a researcher at the University of Padua geography department, said high-definition satellite photographs had revealed the ruins of an extensive town much closer to present day Venice at Altino -- known in Roman times as Altinum -- a little more than seven miles north of the city, close to Marco Polo airport... The newly identified ruins include streets, palaces,...

Maya City in 3-D Airborne lasers have "stripped" away thick rain forests to reveal new images of an ancient Maya metropolis that's far bigger than anyone had thought. An April 2009 flyover of the Maya city of Caracol used Light Detection and Ranging (LiDAR) equipment—which bounces laser beams off the ground—to help scientists construct a 3-D map of the settlement in western Belize. The survey revealed previously unknown buildings, roads, and other features in just four days, scientists announced earlier this month at the International Symposium on Archaeometry in Tampa, Florida. University of Central Florida anthropologists Arlen and Diane Chase...

SPACE AGE LASERS REVEAL OFFA'S DYKE MISSING LINK BY JANET HUGHES J.HUGHES@BEPP.CO.UK 08:00 - 01 June 2007 It has remained hidden for centuries but space-age technology has stripped away layers of history to discover what excited archaeologists believe could be a missing section of Offa's Dyke. Aerial laser technology, which allows the experts to see what is hidden below the trees and the undergrowth, has discovered a long strip of earthworks in the Forest of Dean. And archaeologists believe they may have finally found a missing 250-metre stretch of the Dyke built by King Offa between 757 to 796 AD...

Lava left its mark on Grand Canyon Friday, 15 February 2008 Larry O'Hanlon Discovery News Volcanic lava flows onced dammed the river that ran through the Grand Canyon (Source: iStockphoto) The Grand Canyon was not just carved by water. It has also been the scene of periodic wars between the Colorado River and volcanic eruptions that dammed the river, then burst. New airborne elevation survey data and radioisotope dating of Grand Canyon lava flows sheds new light on the battle between water and molten rocks there over the past 725,000 years. Over that time there have been no fewer than...

Satellites spot lost Guatemala Mayan temples Wed Feb 20, 2008 1:29pm EST GUATEMALA CITY (Reuters) - Ancient Mayan astronomers aligned their soaring temples with the stars and now modern archeologists have found the ruins of hidden cities in the Guatemalan jungle by peering down from space. Archeologists and NASA scientists began teaming up five years ago to search for clues about the mysterious collapse of the Mayan civilization that flourished in Central America and southern Mexico for 1,000 years. The work is paying off, says archeologist William Saturno, who recently discovered five sprawling sites with hundreds of buildings using a...

On Shaky Ground: Geological Faults Threaten HoustonPictured is a Houston-area map showing the locations of salt domes and known active surface faults interpreted on lidar imagery. (Credit: Shuhab Khan and Richard Engelkemeir)ScienceDaily (Apr. 29, 2008) — After finding more than 300 surface faults in Harris County, a University of Houston geologist now has information that could be vitally useful to the region's builders and city planners. This information -- the most accurate and comprehensive of its kind -- was discovered by Shuhab Khan, assistant professor of geology, and Richard Engelkemeir, a geology Ph.D. student, using advanced radar-like laser technology. Although...

Greek Style Architecture Found in the Ancient Achaemenid City Achaemenid city of Istakhr in Fars Province Tehran , 25 June 2008: Archaeologists have used geological surveys in the south of Iran to reveal rectangular formations inspired by Greek architecture dating to the Sassanid era. Archeologists have said that the structures located in Fars Province are part of the urban planning of the ancient Achaemenid city of Istakhr during the Sassanid period (226-651 CE). The design is loaned from Hippodamus style of urban planning during a series of armed conflicts with Persias great rival to the west, the Roman Empire, said...