BIBLE HISTORY DAILY

Cold War Spy Satellites Aid Archaeologists

Bible and archaeology news

Thanks to the efforts of researchers at the University of Arkansas, archaeologists now have free access to thousands of high-resolution declassified satellite images taken of Israel and the Middle East during the 1960s. The CORONA spy imagery, declassified in the mid-1990s and recently made freely available by the Center for Advanced Spatial Technologies at the University of Arkansas, is particularly important for archaeologists working in the Middle East. The region’s rapid urban expansion, agricultural intensification and many large-scale dam projects during the past decades have obscured and even destroyed countless archaeological sites. The images, therefore, provide a valuable window onto the region’s landscape and archaeology before the advent of modern development, and have already allowed archaeologists to find both lost sites as well as countless others that have never been documented.

Thanks to the efforts of researchers at the University of Arkansas, archaeologists now have free access to thousands of high-resolution declassified satellite images taken of Israel and the Middle East during the 1960s.