Sarah Parcak: belief

Transcript context

…What’s a typical email you get from somebody who has found something or maybe thinks they found something and haven’t? What do they write you? It’s interesting. I get probably a couple emails a week from people. I would say it depends on where they’re from. That is a good barometer of the believability of what they find. I would say that 100 percent of the emails I get from people in Scandinavia, whether it’s Denmark, Norway, or Sweden — in particular, Norway — people in Norway are really good at finding potential Viking ships in their fields. It’s wild, and they’re always very polite and respectful. I’m delighted to get emails like that. I’m delighted to get emails from people anyway. It’s just always fun to see what people find. I’ve gotten a lot of really interesting findings from people in places like Italy. There’re so many villas of different periods of time that people find in fields or elsewhere. I get a lot of emails from, let’s just say, interesting individuals who are from America’s heartland, who spend a lot of time looking for things of a biblical nature, and 100 percent of the time, they send me snapshots of rocks. “Here’s this amazing ship.” “Here’s the lost city of whatever in Israel,” or wherever. And you’re like, “You found some rocks, good job.” I don’t engage with them because it’s not always smart to do it. But every now and then, I’ll get an email from someone who said, “Hey, I think I found something.” I’m like, “You actually did find something. I don’t have time to engage with you because my students come first, but yes, you found something.” I’d say half the time, it’s interesting, and half the time, it’s just part of the job. Last two questions. First, who was it that first recognized your talent in these areas?…

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