By Kurtis Archer | 2026-04-21

In the New Space Age, cutting edge satellite technology is helping archaeologists look back into the past and uncover long buried -- or long submerged -- mysteries from ancient history.

Among them is a recently discovered Egyptian vessel that is close to 2,000 years old and is the first of its kind ever discovered in the north African country.

"Archaeological research now includes expertise from geography and earth science, and for some archaeologists, remote sensing has become as valuable as carbon dating," according to NASA.

NASA hired its first archaeologist, Tom Sever, in 1981, at a time when archaeologists had only just started to approach the US space agency for help in surveying sites.

Sever -- now considered a pioneer in the field -- had approached the agency following a project in which he had been attempting to retrace paths followed by 16th century Spanish conquistador Francisco Pizarro.

At NASA’s Stennis Space Center, he joined a cadre of programers learning to interpret satellite images, and began mapping agricultural sites by day and archaeological sites by night, using an expanding set of space-based tools.

"In the last decade, higher-resolution imagery and the development of other spaceborne techniques have triggered a boom in satellite-data-driven discoveries," Barcelona-based InSAR tech company GeoKinesia said last June.

"Combined with historical records and field surveys, satellite data is helping to uncover evidence of lost cities, ceremonial complexes, roads, and fortifications — many of which had been hidden for centuries."

It's also helping marine archaeologists uncover significant finds submerged beneath the sea.

Seeing beneath the sea

Satellites that can detect electromagnetic radiation beyond the visible spectrum enable archaeologists to see "spectral signatures" via hyperspectral imaging.

These are subtle variations in the light reflecting off the seafloor, invisible to the naked eye, that can reveal the outlines and bones of submerged ruins buried beneath hundreds of years of accumulated sediment.

This type of satellite technology led to the discovery, in October, of the wreck of an ancient Egyptian pleasure boat (thalamagos), in a port complex off the coast of the Egyptian city of Alexandria.

The complex was part of the long-submerged island of Antirhodos, in Alexandria's Eastern Harbor.

Excavations led by maritime archaeology professor Franck Goddio and his team at the European Institute for Underwater Archaeology (IEASM) led to the discovery of preserved ship timbers, some 92 feet long.

Some of the timbers bore Greek graffiti dated to the early first century AD.

Researchers believe the barge had a flat-bottomed hull that was wide enough for a central cabin, mirroring the floating palaces of the Ptolemaic dynasty.

They note the vessel was much like the one Cleopatra VII used to take Julius Caesar on a springtime sightseeing tour of Egypt in 47 BCE. Cleopatra ruled the Ptolemaic Kingdom of Egypt from 51 to 30 BCE.

The boat "would have had a luxuriously decorated cabin and seems to have been propelled only by oars," according the IEASM.

Archaeologists believe more than 20 rowers would have been needed.

"The bow is flat…and the stern is round…to be able to navigate in very shallow water," Goddio told the Guardian. "It’s extremely exciting because it’s the first time ever that such a boat has been discovered in Egypt."

The pleasure boat matches a description by Strabo, the first-century Greek historian.

"These vessels are luxuriously fitted out and used by the royal court for excursions; and the crowd of revelers who go down from Alexandria by the canal to the public festivals; for every day and every night is crowded with people on the boats who play the flute and dance without restraint and with extreme licentiousness," he wrote.

In the Nile Mosaic of Palestrina, a town near ancient Rome, "you see such a boat of a much smaller size with noblemen hunting hippopotamuses," Goddio told the Guardian, noting that this is the first real life example to be unearthed to date.

Triumph of spacial intelligence

The discovery of the thalamagos within the submerged island's port was more than a lucky find -- it was a triumph of spatial intelligence.

While divers touched the vessel's timber, it was satellite technology that provided the "big picture" of where the ship was in the context of the ancient harbor and island complex, and why it was there.

Using Geographic Information Systems (GIS), researchers could overlay high-resolution satellite imagery with bathymetric data (the topography of the seafloor) and ancient Ptolemaic maps.

This allowed the team to construct a "digital twin" of the Alexandria port complex as it existed two millennia ago.

With the reconstruction, the wreck ceased to be an isolated point on a map and became a vital piece of a 3D puzzle.

The vessel may have sunk during the catastrophic destruction of the nearby temple of Isis on Antirhodos Island around 50 AD, according to Goddio, whose team has been excavating the temple.

At that time, earthquakes and ocean tides caused large areas of Alexandria’s shoreline and infrastructure to collapse into the sea.

The IEASM noted that work on the wreck promises to provide a fascinating window into the "life, religion, luxury and pleasure on the waterways of early Roman Egypt."

While the boat herself is a marvel of the first century, the discovery of her ancient remains is a marvel of the 21st century, thanks to satellite technology.

Satellite technology also will play a role in preserving the vessel and its 2,000-year-old story for future generations.

Organic materials like the boat’s timbers are extremely fragile once exposed to oxygen, and satellite technology will enable the ongoing monitoring of the site’s environmental stability without the need for physical interference.