AAJ 2013 - A final few words

Tools of the trade. APAAME_20130418_DLK-0310. Photo: David Kennedy.

The 2013 flying season in Jordan extended over a month and comprised of four flights: 20130409, 20130414, 20130418 and 20130428 which can now be accessed on our Flickr site; and five ground fieldtrips: 20130412, 20130416, 20130419, 20130430 and 20130502. Despite some very inclement weather in the month of April, somehow the flying days remained clear and four successful flights were conducted, sadly the first cut short to just two legs out of three due to technical difficulties.

All photographs from the flights are now online. Direct links to the flight photosets on Flickr are provided with the flight summaries below. We continue to provide all photographs ‘warts and all’ online as you may very well be interested in a different aspect of our photography and/or spot something that we haven’t in a ‘bad’ photo. If you do so please do not hesitate to let us know!

Ghussein Settlement 2. APAAME_20130409_RHB-0049. Photo: Robert Bewley.

20130409: to the east over the basalt desert. Bernd Mueller-Neuhof of the Deutsches Archäologisches Institut accompanied us on this flight to aid us in identifying and recording sites pertinent to his project ‘Arid Habitats in the 5th to the Early 3rd Millennium BC: Mobile Subsistence, Communication and Key Resource Use in the Northern Badia (NE-Jordan)’. This included stone structures and possible settlement areas built on the basalt landscape, such as the Bronze Age site and water farming structures of Jawa, but also flint mines located beyond the eastern edge of the lavafield.

Umm el-Hanafish. APAAME_20130414_REB-0028. Photo: Rebecca Banks.

20130414: This flight sought to illuminate for us of the condition of sites located within the hinterland of Amman, ancient Philadelphia. Some sites are well known ruins and have been investigated. Many sites are recorded as possible ruins by 19th century travellers or marked as ruins on maps created during the middle 20th century drawn from topographical survey photographs, but little is known of them since those notations. Sites were difficult to see or investigate due to their location either amongst the expanding suburbs of Amman or in a fertile area with continued farming, habitation, and even lush spring grasses doing their best to hide ruins.

Kites and Wheels in the vicinity of Azraq damaged due to bulldozing and the development of an olive farm. APAAME_20130418_MND-0806. Photo: Mat Dalton.

20130418: We returned to the basalt desert of Jordan for this flight to conduct some requested flying in the region of Jebel Qurma for the University of Leiden’s ongoing project directed by Prof. Akkermans, and those sites in the vicinity of the northernmost Mesa in the Qattafi area for Prof. Gary Rollefson and his ongoing research in that area. In addition to this we recorded and monitored numerous sites, moving north from the Qattafi area to Safawi, and then to Azraq itself. What is particularly apparent during this flight is the difference in site condition between more remote structures in the basalt desert and those closer to the developed areas of Safawi and Azraq.

Dayr Ajlun? located in the backyard of a modern house. A cistern and press are visible. APAAME_20130428_DDB-1107. Photo: Don Boyer

20130428: Our last flight of the season was spent in the fertile and densely populated areas of Jarash and the southern Highlands of Ajlun. Jarash is an area we monitor closely and frequently, but this flight we concentrated on smaller sites that can easily go unnoticed in the landscape - the evidence of water structures such as mills, presses, cisterns and channels that would have allowed the landscape to support a large population and industry in ancient times. These structures are the topic of the ongoing research of fellow AAJ team member Don Boyer. The flight also continued and broadened the focus of 20130414’s flight: sites noted by 19th century explorers and sites in the greater Amman hinterland area. This flight was not only interesting for its subject matter, but as it was spring, breathtakingly beautiful documenting the region’s landscape in full verdure.

We are always thankful for the kindness and hospitality we experience in Jordan: from the British Institute, Amman where we are based and supported by the Director Carol Palmer and the Administrator Nadja Qais; the Royal Jordanian Air Force who continually provide us with access to the very necessary aircraft and excellent pilots to conduct our flights – under the skilful and friendly direction of Colonel Ra’ed Thaglag, and Lt. Colonels Khalil Bjadough and Farouk Al-Sabbagh; our colleagues and the many institutions in and working in Jordan who meet with us and aid us in developing the Archive through their own research and expertise; and of course the lovely and constantly hospitable people of Jordan itself. Finally but crucially, heartfelt thanks to the continued generous and vital support of the Packard Humanities Institute.

ICHAJ 2013

From left: David Kennedy, Bob Bewley, Rebecca Banks, Francesca Radcliffe, and Don Boyer.

Four members of our APAAME team gave papers at the 12th ICHAJ conference in Berlin last week. Rebecca had had a lot of demands made or her time and talents in Jordan the previous month and this was her first serious international conference presentation. It went VERY well and she deserved tremendous credit for both content and presentation. She celebrated appropriately afterwards in the Tiergarten Pub … and even finished it.

– DLK

Conferences: ICHAJ 2013 Berlin

Next week, you will find a few of us in Berlin for the International Conference on the History and Archaeology of Jordan. Here is where you can find us:

Monday 6 May - Grimm Zentrum 11:30am
David Kennedy The Hinterland of Roman Philadelphia

Tuesday 7 May - Raum 3119 9:00am
Robert Bewley Heritage management and the contribution of aerial archaeology in Jordan and beyond.

Wednesday 8 May - Raum 3119 10:00am
Rebecca Banks Digitising APAAME : methodologies and tools for managing modern and historical aerial imagery of Jordan and greater Arabia in a digital environment

Thursday 9 May - Raum 3119 2:00pm
Don Boyer The ruins of Gerasa in 1816-19 : an analysis of the plan and drawing archives of William John Bankes and Charles Barry

For more information, please visit the ICHAJ website - hope to see you there!

 http://www.ichaj.org/

APAAME Videos

We started a YouTube account for APAAME to share a few 123DCatch 3D reconstructions Mat Dalton had experimented with back in 2012: APAAMEvideo.

We have since started taking video footage along side still photography during our flights, and last week I uploaded a taster of footage of Qasr el-Uweinid, and most recently, one of Qasr Aseikhim. These are a test release of what shall be a channel for footage that has been taken by the Aerial Archaeology in Jordan Project. Due to issues with internet connection in Amman, we have not been able to upload the videos in as high a quality as we would like - please watch this space for new uploads!

Depending on how many hands are free, we use a GoPro borrowed from a colleague at the University of Western Australia, and a Canon XA10 Video Camera. Due to space and convenience in the helicopter, both are hand held. Fortunately, the vibrations of the helicopter do not come through into the footage too much. As we become more familiar with the editing tools available to us, we should be able to make the footage appear smoother. At the moment, the noise and vibrations should give you a real experience of what it is like in the Royal Jordanian Air Force's Hueys!

One of the advantages to video footage and 3D reconstructions in addition to still photography is having a vehicle to communicate depth and landscape, which is sometimes lost in the still photographs, especially when viewed in isolation. We hope you find the footage interesting and enjoyable.

Flight 20130418 - Modern traces in an ancient lanscape

Bedouin tents near Azraq. The outline left by a tent (centre) is a common site when flying over the Panhandle of Jordan ©APAAME_20130418_MND-0189.

Flying over the Basalt Desert in the Jordanian Panhandle with its profuse scattering of ancient stone structures of Kites, Pendants, Wheels and others it is often easy to forget that this stark landscape is still traversed and used by modern Bedouin. During our last flight, we saw some tangible evidence of this - with what appear to be modern structures built alongside the old.

Bedouin Mosque - the outline of a mosque is created using the basalt stones in a cleared area. It is identifiable as a mosque due to the addition of a 'mirhab' (centre of photo - click to enlarge) © APAAME_20130418_MND-0324.

Modern? 'graves' side by side located next to a wheel (see below). © APAAME_20130418_MND-0551.

Ausaji Wheel 231 with 'graves' visible to the right of picture © APAAME_20130418_MND-0552.

Field Trip 19 April 2013 - Flying follow up

Salvaged columns on display at Umm el-Qundun.

Friday again and after our two flights this week it was time for some terrestrial visits. The main purpose was to follow up on two sites recorded from the air last Sunday and to check on another which we have been monitoring (and will report on in the next Blog).

Umm el-Qundun lies on a hilltop 13 km SSE of the centre of Roman Philadelphia (Amman). The region all around is fertile red soils and intensely farmed today – all along the roadsides farmers have set up boxes of their freshly harvested tomatoes, beans, melons etc. When we flew over the site on Sunday Mat photographed a large house on the hilltop in which he had spotted what looked like parts of columns lined up along a verandah. Zooming in on the photos in the Institute later that day confirmed they seemed to be parts of ancient columns.

Qundum was our first port of call this morning and easily found. It is a delightful house, seemingly unattended except by some loud (and, happily) enclosed dogs in the courtyard. The walls are largely constructed from what look like re-used squared blocks of ancient stonework – presumably recycled from some nearby ancient site. What caught our attention, however, was first the row of broken columns we had come to see (columns rather than milestone drums as I had hoped might be the case) then all the other pieces of architectural decoration: a few column capitals, piece of architrave, some finely carved pieces. Round the corner was the covered mouth of an ancient cistern and a rebuilt second cistern with a plaque recording it had been done by ‘The Messengers of Peace NGO’ and financed by ‘OME World Organization for Education’ of Geneva.

Of course the place is ‘known’ – a German survey had recorded material there as had a later team of the Madaba Plains Project. They noted the architectural pieces (without illustrating any) but supplied the detail that the farm belonged to Mamdou Bisharat and the pieces had been collected from the vicinity. As it happens I had met Mamdou – a very courtly gentleman, some years ago at drinks in his Amman home then subsequently swum in his delightful natural hot springs farm beside the R. Yarmuk just north of Umm Qeis (Gadara) and near where the Roman thermal spring site lay (now in Israel across the river). Both his town and Umm Qeis houses are festooned with pieces of ancient architecture and sculpture (whose provenance he has reported to the DoA).

Roman road on the outskirts of Hanafish. © APAAME_20130414_DLK-0075.

While searching for a possible stretch of Roman road a few kilometres southwest on the southern outskirts of Hanafish we visited the remains of a (Roman?) farm on the hilltop south of the modern town and the extensive traces of monumental tombs, rock-cut graves and cisterns. The ‘road’ turned out to be a phantom, but on our flight the keen eye of Bob Bewley spotted a genuine Roman road cutting the phantom at right angles. It showed from the air as a stretch of apparent kerbing. On the ground it was even more convincing. If the alignment is extended it picks up stretches of modern road and track to the south-southwest which point very closely to the small Roman town of Ziza (modern Jiza), famous for its huge ancient reservoir and, now following excavation, a church. It also figures in the Roman document called the Notitia Dignitatum – a battle order for the entire army, empire-wide, c. AD 400, which records: Equites Dalmat[ae] Illyriciani, Ziza (The Dalmatian Illyrian Cavalry, at Ziza). Such a road is not unlikely but this seems to be the first hard evidence for it.

-DLK

Roman road near Hanafish at ground level.

All photographs taken by the Aerial Archaeology in Jordan Project are uploaded to the APAAME Flickr site after cataloging. Follow us on Twitter at @APAAME for updates.

Flight 20130414, Field Trip 20130416 - al-Muwaqqar

Cropped section of RAF Topographical photograph dated 14 September, 1948 showing Al-Muwaqqar before the modern village was built.

Looking at the site of Al-Muwaqqar on historical RAF photographs from the 1940s, we were puzzled by a rectangular dark shape that resembled the outline of a small reservoir, south east of the known desert castle and south-west of the known large reservoir. Overlaying the photograph in Google Earth allowed us to pin point a GPS coordinate to investigate from the air, which was done on our second flight of the season - 14 April, 2013.

Aerial photograph taken 14 April 2013 with features indicated. © APAAME_20130414_DLK-0013

During our flight we thought we did not find the site, suspecting it had since been built over or buried by time. We did see exposed walls and mosaics of a recently excavated site - possibly a mansion or bath building, which we did photograph (Mega-J 58371 'Mwaqer Mosaic House'). Upon a closer look at the photographs post flight, a large wall to the west of the 'mansion' was clearly evident. We had indeed found the site we were looking for - but was it a reservoir wall?

Exposed section of 'reservoir' wall. © APAAMEG_20130416_MND-0013.

'Mansion'? © APAAMEG_20130416_MND-0016.

A quick ride in the car east of Amman on the road towards Azraq enabled us to follow up what we had photographed. Indeed, the wall west of the 'mansion' was substantial, moreover, the possible evidence of waterproofing with cement was apparent - though ancient or modern we do not know. An associated double wall was just evident on the surface running off diagonally from the south-western corner of the structure to the north-west. The eastern extent of the reservoir was not readily apparent. The section of excavated 'mansion' next to it had a beautifully paved floor, at least three mosaics (one almost complete), and evidence of at least two building events - one with large square stone paving blocks, a later one of tile and mortar. The whole site unfortunately was being impacted by construction waste being dumped in the area, and was cut by a road, drain and the construction of a neighbouring house.

Aerial photographs taken by the AAJ in 1998 and 2008 (Click to enlarge).

We also visited Qasr al-Muwaqqar, an Umayyad Desert Castle now overlain by the modern town. This site had also been much impacted by modern use; new concrete houses have encroached on this site, and some of the vaulted rooms appear to have been converted into early modern houses (complete with traditional reed and mud roofs), much like what has occurred as Qasr Azraq. These houses are now used as livestock pens by local residents. Rubbish is also dumped on the site. Sandstone columns and a regularly paved floor attested to the Qasr's former glory. The numerous ornate column capitals from the site have long-since been removed, as has the stone water-gauge.

Goat pens at Qasr al-Muwaqqar.
© APAAMEG_20130416_DLK-0052.

Paving Qasr al-Muwaqqar.
© APAAMEG_20130416_REB-0026.

The large reservoir of el-Muwaqqar is visible from the road. The site has been restored and is functional - still half full from the season's rains.

Large reservoir at Al-Muwaqqar. © APAAMEG_20130416_DLK-0058.

All photographs from the flight and ground visit will be available on Flickr shortly. http://www.flickr.com/apaame/collections. Follow us at @APAAME on twitter for updates.