satellite image showing the White Monastery church and its surroundings

see overview of excavations and technical explanation

This image includes two kinds of indications of areas for further investigation: one shows a feature visible above ground; the second notes differences in soil not visible to the naked eye. At the area marked X on the figure above , two long parallel ridges and two cross ridges can be seen. In the winter of 2002-3, we looked at them on site. Such features noted in satellite imagery could also be found by walking over the terrain, but obviously the image allows a wider examination to direct the walker.

In the second case, marked Y on the figure at left, subsurface anomalies show up as blue in this manipulation. These areas are not visible to the naked eye,, and would not appear in an ordinary aerial photograph. (They are not visible in this small print.)

There are a variety of ways that subsurface deposits can be identified through aerial perspection. In addition to the variable response of vegetation over ruins, buried architecture can be identified through unusual qualities of the soil that overlies and surrounds it. Certain soil properties correlating with buried remains can affect the retention and dissipation of moisture. Such qualities similarly affect the spectral characteristics of soil in certain circumstances.

There may be other causes for the presence or absence of such anomalies. In this image, however, when the area right beside the letter Y is examined in a large scale version, a number of straight lines can be seen running parallel to each other. Such regular shapes suggest human intervention: they frequently indicate the position of buried architectural remains.

The next step in non-intrusive inspection would be magnetic mapping. Tomasz Herbich, who has done such work very successfully on a number of sites in Egypt, considers both this area and the area within the enclosure wall of the Red Monastery to be fine targets for such work. We hope that may be possible to obtain permission to do such work in the near future.