How to pronounce "shells"

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Translator: Jenny Zurawell

When I was a child growing up in Maine,

one of my favorite things to do

was to look for sand dollars on the seashores of Maine,

because my parents told me it would bring me luck.

But you know, these shells, they're hard to find.

They're covered in sand, they're difficult to see.

However, over time, I got used to looking for them.

I started seeing shapes

and patterns that helped me to collect them.

This grew into a passion for finding things,

a love for the past and archaeology.

And eventually, when I started studying Egyptology,

I realized that seeing with my naked eyes alone wasn't enough.

Because all of the sudden, in Egypt,

my beach had grown from a tiny beach in Maine

to one eight hundred miles long,

next to the Nile.

And my sand dollars had grown to the size of cities.

This is really what brought me to using satellite imagery.

For trying to map the past, I knew that I had to see differently.

So I want to show you an example of how we see differently

using the infrared.

This is a site located in the eastern Egyptian delta

called Mendes.

And the site visibly appears brown,

but when we use the infrared

and we process it, all of the sudden,

using false color,

the site appears as bright pink.

What you are seeing

are the actual chemical changes to the landscape

caused by the building materials and activities

of the ancient Egyptians.

What I want to share with you today

is how we've used satellite data

to find an ancient Egyptian city,

called Itjtawy,

missing for thousands of years.

Itjtawy was ancient Egypt's capital

for over four hundred years,

at a period of time called the Middle Kingdom,

about four thousand years ago.

The site is located in the Faiyum of Egypt,

and the site is really important,

because in the Middle Kingdom there was this great renaissance

for ancient Egyptian art, architecture and religion.

Egyptologists have always known the site of Itjtawy

was located somewhere near the pyramids of the two kings who built it,

indicated within the red circles here,

but somewhere within this massive flood plain.

This area is huge --

it's four miles by three miles in size.

The Nile used to flow right next to the city of Itjtawy,

and as it shifted and changed and moved over time to the east,

it covered over the city.

So, how do you find a buried city

in a vast landscape?

Finding it randomly would be the equivalent

of locating a needle in a haystack,

blindfolded, wearing baseball mitts.

(Laughter)

So what we did is we used NASA topography data

to map out the landscape, very subtle changes.

We started to be able to see where the Nile used to flow.

But you can see in more detail, and even more interesting,

this very slight raised area

seen within the circle up here

which we thought could possibly be the location of the city of Itjtawy.

So we collaborated with Egyptian scientists

to do coring work, which you see here.

When I say coring, it's like ice coring,

but instead of layers of climate change,

you're looking for layers of human occupation.

And, five meters down,

underneath a thick layer of mud,

we found a dense layer of pottery.

What this shows is that at this possible location of Itjtawy,

five meters down,

we have a layer of occupation for several hundred years,

dating to the Middle Kingdom,

dating to the exact period of time we think Itjtawy is.

We also found work stone --

carnelian, quartz and agate

that shows that there was a jeweler's workshop here.

These might not look like much,

but when you think about the most common stones

used in jewelry from the Middle Kingdom,

these are the stones that were used.

So, we have a dense layer of occupation

dating to the Middle Kingdom at this site.

We also have evidence of an elite jeweler's workshop,

showing that whatever was there was a very important city.

No Itjtawy was here yet,

but we're going to be returning to the site

in the near future to map it out.

And even more importantly,

we have funding to train young Egyptians in the use of satellite technology

so they can be the ones making great discoveries as well.

So I wanted to end with my favorite quote from the Middle Kingdom --

it was probably written at the city of Itjtawy

four thousand years ago.

"Sharing knowledge is the greatest of all callings.

There's nothing like it in the land."

So as it turns out, TED was not founded in 1984 AD.

(Laughter)

Making ideas actually started in 1984 BC

at a not-lost-for-long city, found from above.

It certainly puts finding seashells by the seashore in perspective.

Thank you very much.

(Applause)

Thank you.

(Applause)

Phonetic Breakdown of "shells"

Learn how to break down "shells" into its phonetic components. Understanding syllables and phonetics helps with pronunciation, spelling, and language learning.

Standard Phonetic Pronunciation:

/ʃɛlz/

Phonetic representation based on standard dictionaries

IPA Phonetic Pronunciation:

SH EH1 L Z

Standard phonetic transcription to help with precise pronunciation

Pronunciation Tips:

Stress the first syllable
Pay attention to vowel sounds
Practice each syllable separately

Spelling Benefits:

Easier to remember spelling
Helps with word recognition
Improves reading fluency

Definition of "shells"

Pronunciation: /ʃɛlz/

Noun

A hard external covering of an animal.
The hard calcareous covering of a bird egg.
One of the outer layers of skin of an onion.

Example: "The restaurant served caramelized onion shells."
The hard external covering of various plant seed forms.
The accreted mineral formed around a hollow geode.
The casing of a self-contained single-unit artillery projectile.
A hollow, usually spherical or cylindrical projectile fired from a siege mortar or a smoothbore cannon. It contains an explosive substance designed to be ignited by a fuse or by percussion at the target site so that it will burst and scattered at high velocity its contents and fragments. Formerly called a bomb.
The cartridge of a breechloading firearm; a load; a bullet; a round.
Any slight hollow structure; a framework, or exterior structure, regarded as not complete or filled in, as the shell of a house.
A garment, usually worn by women, such as a shirt, blouse, or top, with short sleeves or no sleeves, that often fastens in the rear.
A coarse or flimsy coffin; a thin interior coffin enclosed within a more substantial one.
A string instrument, as a lyre, whose acoustical chamber is formed like a shell.

Example: "The first lyre may have been made by drawing strings over the underside of a tortoise shell."
The body of a drum; the often wooden, often cylindrical acoustic chamber, with or without rims added for tuning and for attaching the drum head.
An engraved copper roller used in print works.
The thin coating of copper on an electrotype.
The watertight outer covering of the hull of a vessel, often made with planking or metal plating.
(rigging) The outer frame or case of a block within which the sheaves revolve.
A light boat whose frame is covered with thin wood, impermeable fabric, or water-proofed paper; a racing shell or dragon boat.
A set of atomic orbitals that have the same principal quantum number.
The outward form independent of what is inside.
The empty outward form of someone or something.

Example: "The setback left him a mere shell; he was never the same again."
An emaciated person.

Example: "He's lost so much weight from illness; he's a shell of his former self."
A psychological barrier to social interaction.

Example: "Even after months of therapy he's still in his shell."
An operating system software user interface, whose primary purpose is to launch other programs and control their interactions; the user's command interpreter. Shell is a way to separate the internal complexity of the implementation of the command from the user. The internals can change while the user experience/interface remains the same.

Example: "The name "Bash" is an acronym which stands for "Bourne-again shell", itself a pun on the name of the "Bourne shell", an earlier Unix shell designed by Stephen Bourne, and the Christian concept of being "born again"."
A legal entity that has no operations.

Example: "A shell corporation was formed to acquire the old factory."
A concave rough cast-iron tool in which a convex lens is ground to shape.
A gouge bit or shell bit.
The onset and coda of a syllable.
A person's ear.

Example: "Can I have a quick word in your shell?"

Synonyms: shell-like

Verb

To remove the outer covering or shell of something.
To bombard, to fire projectiles at, especially with artillery.
To disburse or give up money, to pay. (Often used with out).
To fall off, as a shell, crust, etc.
To cast the shell, or exterior covering; to fall out of the pod or husk.

Example: "Nuts shell in falling."
To switch to a shell or command line.
To form shallow, irregular cracks (in a coating).
To form a shelling.