Day 8 - Some videos and new reports of major GARP sites

First one is from last season - a view of the camp at Fassouah and then down the escarpment towards Batn Al Ghoul. The 720 resolution version is better if your pc/connection can take it.



Second one is from this season and is one of several taken from the helicopter. At about 11 seconds in there is a view of some typical Ottoman Army camp tent rings, still present from their defence of the railway during the First World War.



More will be added when we are able to use a better internet connection.

In the meantime, news from the desert...

At Tel el Shahm the team was today divided into 5 groups this morning. The first group stayed there and field walked the area to the south towards the station. 

The field walkers and detectorists uncovered a variety of metal finds associated with the military occupation, both at the site of the tent rings and towards the railway itself. Also around the base of the southern side of the hilltop on which the fortification stands a major prehistoric site is clearly in evidence, proving a very excited find for David Thorpe and the team members present there today. 

The other four teams walked the remaining un-surveyed section of the Hijaz railway south to Mudawwara, in four separate portions.  One began at the ruins of Ramlah station and headed south. Near the station was found 1 Mauser cartridge and the remains of a defensive crenulated ottoman trench about 100 metres east of the station. They then followed the line in earnest and immediately encountered a small hill adjacent to the east of the line. The hill had been trashed but from it looking south we saw several  parallel rows of tent rings at right angles to the railway line. About 200 metres further east on a low ridge were three roughly circular fine sand areas which are redolent of mule lines. Returning west to the railway we found several more rows of tent circles. Then, following the line to the south, where after about one kilometre to the east of the line, several more rows of tent rings were encountered on low ridges.  All these features were systematically recorded in terms of their GPS location, sketch maps and photographs. This pattern continued for another two kilometres at various locations, always to the east of the line. Basically after a days walking they had covered 4 kilometres of the planned 12, having been ambushed by the incredible high density of relevant features. Roughly about 7 camp sites and 80 or more tent rings, some of which were almost certainly prehistoric. 

The second team started from the outskirts of Mudawwara and went north towards the others with the aim of meeting half way. Leaving Mud with the brilliant green irrigated fields to the east, we entered a wide flat plain that rose gently to a low red sandstone hill that was heavily fortified with blockhouses and round towers. An old railway cutting about 300m in length was seen to the west of the line, and this was also recorded. Continuing to follow the railway line to the north, their attention was captured by a prominent hill 400 metres to the west of the line. Around the base of this was a tent ring encampment with around 35 rings and a network of footpaths leading down to the line. A steep rock cut path led to the top of the hill where a walled enclosure formed a hill top fortification. The walls survived to about 2 metres in height and contained loopholes. The fort completely dominated the landscape. 

The discoveries by these two teams typified the day – there is clearly a wealth of hitherto undiscovered and not yet investigated features on this sector of the railway. It looks like we will have our work cut out for the remaining years of the project to examine and record these amazing remnants of the Great Arab Revolt.

Day 7 - Back to the Desert/Neil on Jordanian Breakfast TV

After a day exploring Petra and Wadi Musa the team headed back into the deep desert today to continue work on the standing building and the three sets of tent rings about 5 km from it. The building lies about an hour and a quarter’s drive from Wadi Musa and the rings about 5 minutes further down both being slightly to the west of the Hijaz railway. The blockhouse is clearly visible from the road, but the rings are only easily found by fieldwalking or from the air.

This part of the desert doesn’t have the epic grandeur of other places we have worked, such as Wadi Rutm or Fassuah Ridge, with their sweeping sandy vistas and magnificent views over the Belly of the Beast. (Batn Al Ghooul). It has its own special nature though, as all of our sites do, in this case characterised by slight rolling dips and troughs, which are often steeper than they appear to be when travelling across them. Also the landscape here has occasional small outcrops of rock crystal, glistening in the desert sun. This appears sometimes to have been collected by workers or soldiers, as there is often a collection of small pieces near the tent rings or round about. Not much to do out here for recreation – maybe collecting bright shiny bits from the desert was a usual pastime…

A couple of the photographs today shows a typical desert bread oven, used to support the troops and other workers in situ. Also there is an image of some of the team in silhouette on a ridge, with the Jordanian sky unusually cloudy but with streams of sunlight breaking through above them.

Also today Neil Faulkner was asked to appear on Jordanian TV live for their equivalent of our Breakfast shows. This was great, apart from the fact it meant leaving the hotel at 3.30 am to make the live transmission time of 7.00 am in Amman. Sporting his Sunday best keffiyah, he and Mansour, together with the President of Al-Hussein Bin Talal University were interviewed for about half an hour on prime-time breakfast television. To great whoops and cheers from the assembled team, including several cries of “I took that photograph!” Neil and Mansour described the work of the project and the great assistance given to us by Mansour, The University and the Jordanian Royal family. 

Day 6 - Archaeologist's R&R in Petra

Day off today and most of the team went into Petra for the day to tour the stunning city. No detailed written blog today, I will leave the pictures to speak for themselves, save to say that in a nice cultural juxtaposition one is of the author reading Seven Pillars of Wisdom on his Kindle in the heart of the ruins in the ancient city.  (click on them for larger versions)

If you have any questions regarding this or any other of the daily Blog updates please leave a comment and we will do our best to answer. 

Day 5 New rings, new theories.

Today we shifted to two new sites, an isolated blockhouse and a tent-ring encampment north of Aqabat Hijaz station. The main aim was to test the hypothesis that some camps were used by militarised labour during the construction of the Hijaz railway rather than by Turkish soldiers during the First World War. This hypothesis would lead us to expect a very different assemblage of finds from these tent rings compared with those from undoubted military use.  Initially we thought we were on the right track because one set of tent rings yielded almost no finds of any type. 

However this expectation was blown away in an afternoon by the projects ace metal detectorists who uncovered a wealth of military paraphernalia including two army officers’ seals, Ottoman coins and other items implying high ranking military presence rather than railroad navvies. A quick investigation by some of the diggers also discovered some fragments of army uniform, and this site looks very promising indeed. 

 The isolated blockhouse on the railway has been meticulously recorded by our standing building survey team, revealing a series of building phases, starting with original construction, continuing through wartime modification, and culminating in both recent restoration work and also recent military training use. An interesting feature of the archaeology o this structure is the recent air force graffiti including representations of fighter jets and military roundels and insignia. 

 The second set of rings at this site is proving so interesting that we will return to revisit this site on Monday, when a proper archaeological excavation of them will be undertaken.

On the way back from the desert today we were unexpectedly invited by our Jordanian friend and colleague Mansour and his wife Aklas to stop off at their house for some tea and snacks. What a lovely surprise it turned out to be, and far more than snacks! An amazing array of food cooked and wonderfully presented was laid out before 26 sand weary and dusty archaeologists. The spread was truly splendid and we would all like to express our heartfelt thanks to Mansour and Aklas for their fantastic hospitality. 

Finally here is a photograph of the group standing in front of the military helicopter some of us were privileged to have flown in the other day.