IT WAS ALWAYS A TREAT when my mother rented movies. I never expected one of them to change my life. In the 1981 film Raiders of the Lost Ark, archaeologist and adventurer Indiana Jones, played by Harrison Ford, is recruited to recover the long-lost Ark, along the way digging up relics and piecing together the mysteries surrounding them. It was all the inspiration I needed. At that moment I knew what I was going to do for a living, and I didn't need a magic sword or a way to travel the galaxy to do it. All I had to do was learn a craft.
And so, I did. I've been a registered professional archaeologist, with an undergraduate degree in anthropology from California University of Pennsylvania and a graduate degree in North American history from Norwich University in Vermont, for over 17 years, and I'm as addicted now as I was then to what it's all about artifact hunting. I love recovering objects, whether it's digging deep into the earth or sweeping the surface using a metal detector. I've excavated burial mounds and pre-contact villages and metal-detected battlefields. Sometimes you get lucky, but sometimes you can spend hours prepping and days scavenging only to return home with nothing.
So when I saw a YouTube video of a guy using magnets to retrieve submerged objects from bodies of water, I was intrigued. And though none of his haul was the type of stuff I was used to finding during a land excavation-he reeled in a gun this different style of treasure hunting, called magnet fishing, almost guarantees you won't go home empty-handed. Even though his find ended up having no historical significance, what I found even more compelling was not knowing the gun's backstory: Who owned it? Why was it tossed into the water? Was it used to commit a crime? It was like a modern-day mystery that needed to be solved.
هذه القصة مأخوذة من طبعة May - June 2022 من Popular Mechanics.
ابدأ النسخة التجريبية المجانية من Magzter GOLD لمدة 7 أيام للوصول إلى آلاف القصص المتميزة المنسقة وأكثر من 8500 مجلة وصحيفة.
بالفعل مشترك ? تسجيل الدخول
هذه القصة مأخوذة من طبعة May - June 2022 من Popular Mechanics.
ابدأ النسخة التجريبية المجانية من Magzter GOLD لمدة 7 أيام للوصول إلى آلاف القصص المتميزة المنسقة وأكثر من 8500 مجلة وصحيفة.
بالفعل مشترك? تسجيل الدخول
The Cascading Failures Behind One of the Worst Building Collapses in U.S. History
Engineers are still investigating the collapse of Champlain Towers South in Surfside Florida, but early findings shed light on a risk facing poorly constructed residential and office buildings,
Cutting the Cord
THE HANDHELD CIRCULAR SAW IS PERHAPS THE MOST VERSAtile power tool for cutting wood.
How Three Amateurs Solved the Zodiac Killer's '340' Cipher
The mysterious code stumped the FBI and NSA for 53 years. What does the key, and the resulting solution, tell us about the infamous murderer?
POPULAR MECHANICS TOP AWARDS 2024
For more than 120 years, Popular Mechanics has been a heavy-duty brand. We see no reason to change that now.
How This Particle Could Break Our Understanding of Reality
EINSTEIN'S SPECIAL THEORY OF relativity teaches us that nothing can accelerate past the speed of light. But what if, when you were born, you were already moving faster than light? What would that look like?
The Right Way to Use a Fire Extinguisher
A FIRE EXTINGUISHER IS MORE THAN A of one 5-gallon bucket becomes the size of 64 burning buckets. Just 180 seconds after it begins, a fire can be transformed from a nuisance to a room-size, life-threatening inferno.
How the World's Largest Spherical Structure Was Built
THE SHINY, NEW LAS VEGAS SPHERE IS more than just a 17,600-seat amphitheaterstyle venue hosting a U2 residency. Since its opening in September 2023, it's become the world's largest spherical structure, at 516 feet wide and 366 feet tall.
The Army's Drone-Killing Laser Weapon
THE U.S. ARMY FIELDED ITS FIRST LASERweapon-equipped unit in October. Based at Fort Sill, Oklahoma, the unit took possession of four laser-equipped Stryker infantry combat vehicles, each mounting a 50-kilowatt-class laser-weapon system. The combination of Stryker and laser can down both artillery, such as mortars and rockets, and drones in-flight.
Why It's So Hard to Mine the World's Largest Lithium Deposit
A Pass, or Peehee Mu'huh to the local Paiute people has been mined since the 1970s, so the new analysis merely confirms what locals have long known about the area.
WHAT THE WORLD'S MOST POWERFUL X-RAY LASER WILL DO FOR SCIENCE
DEEP UNDER MENLO PARK, California, there is a threemile-long machine operating in a tunnel that scientists are keeping colder than even some of the deepest reaches of space.