A new use for the Blackhawks.

HRH Crown Prince Al Hussein bin Abdullah II during an aerial tour in Jordan’s skies over the Dead Sea.

Photographs: Deir Ain Abata Project

Dr. Konstantinos Dino Politis has made available to APAAME his collection of slides and negatives taken in the course of aerial reconnaissance in Jordan over a period from the early 1990s until the early 2000s. The collection includes informal photography taken from commercial flights flying in and out of Amman as well as professional aerial photography taken by Dr. Politis and his team from a helicopter in the course of their research. A starring feature of this collection is the site of Deir Ain Abata, a site found and excavated by Dr. Politis.

Deir Ain Abata. Photographer: Bill Lyons. APAAME_19990503_BL-0014.

Deir Ain Abata was discovered during an archaeological survey in 1986 near the modern town of Safi in Jordan, located just east of the southern Dead Sea basin. Under threat from erosion from its location on a steep slope and its vicinity to the expanding town of Safi, it was decided the site would be excavated and conserved. The site consists of a large reservoir, a triple apsed basilica church with mosaics, a cave on the north aisle of the basilica, a refectory, and a 'Pilgrim's Hostel' north of the refectory. 1991 excavations exposed the church, the western front of which was at peril of continuing to collapse down the face of the mountain. Conservation work was undertaken in 1994 to stabilise the structure. An inscription revealed that the basilica had been renovated in 691AD - during the Umayyad period. The cave was presumed by the Byzantine Christians to be associated with the Old Testament story of Lot, though why this cave was chosen over the many others in its vicinity is unknown to us. Evidence in the cave showed that it had been in use since the Middle Bronze Age II.
You can read more about the site in Dr. Politis' article The Monastery of Aghios Lot at Deir 'Ain 'Abata in Jordan here: http://www.hsnes.org/pdf/Lot%20monastery%20article.pdf

Other Dead Sea and Jordan Valley sites feature prominently in the collection- such as Bab edh-Drah, Khirbet Qazone, Tall Numeira, Bethany on-Jordan, Wadi Kharrar and Tell es-Sa'idiyeh. The collection compliments that of AAJ's aerial reconnaissance in that it contains photographs from before AAJ began its annual program in 1997, as well as photographing sites unknown to or visited at other times by AAJ.

Khirbet Qazone. Photographer: K. D. Politis. APAAME_19990503_KDP-0139.

The scanning was undertaken on an EPSON Perfection V700 Photo flatbed scanner at 3000 dpi. Due to the age and condition of the slides, results varied - especially in colour output, but unfortunately also in the sharpness of the image. Where possible colour was corrected, and site coordinates and identification, date and photographer identified and placed in the image metadata, but this was not always possible. We have retained any written information from the slides in the image description.

You can find the collection of photographs here: The Konstantinos D Politis Collection
If you have any additional information regarding one of the photographs please do not hesitate to leave a comment on the Flickr photo page. Image requests can be made by contacting Dr. Politis. Copyright is retained by the image photographers.

Research: More on the Bekes (Beeks)

Emily and Charles Beke were early travellers in what is now Jordan. Emily was a particularly notable traveller simply as that rarity amongst western travellers up to that point – a woman. But even in 1862 she was not the first known western women to travel in Jordan – Charlotte Rowley had visited Petra with her husband and a friend in 1836 and Mary Ann Roberton Blaine was in northewestern Jordan with her husband in 1849.

The Beke family had also had a member in the region before Charles and Emily. In 1839 Charles’ younger brother, William Beek (he kept the old spelling of the family name), an engineer in The East India Company had worked with the Irishman, George Moore around the Dead Sea ('On the Dead Sea and Some Positions in Syria', JRGS 7 (1837): 456). Various hints point to William having also been to Petra and Jarash at least. William is an interesting character in his own right. A few years earlier he had apparently served as an adventurer in the army of the Persian Crown Prince, Abbas Mirza. It was reported that ‘he led a siege and an escapade against a Turkoman fortress in Khorasan’, in what is now Turkmenistan.

William later appears in Sicily and Italy apparently managing mining operations. An infant son died there as a gravestone from the English Cemetery at Messina in Sicily records:
“William James Beek born 1st December and died 25th June 1840, the son of Ann and William George Beek”.

Another son – Charley, survived to work alongside his father until the 1870s at least and a further son – Reginald Maitland Beek, married a girl in Queensland in September 1888.

A fascinating family and deserving of further investigation, not least for their activities ‘east of Jordan’.

DLK