Aerial Archaeology in Saudi Arabia

Following the media surrounding David Kennedy's recent publication in the journal Arabian Archaeology and Epigraphy about the stone built structures in the area of Harrat Khaybar in Saudi Arabia, Professor David Kennedy was invited to visit and conduct aerial photography in the region of al-'Ula.

You can read about his experience in an article he wrote for LiveScience: 'Aerial Images May Unlock Enigma of Ancient Stone Structures in Saudi Arabia'.

He was accompanied on one flight by journalist Aisha Fareed, and this video was produced for Arab News.



If the video is not loading properly you can view it on YouTube at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3ZUKPDJ1iVI&feature=youtu.be
You can read their full article on Arab News: http://www.arabnews.com/node/1193966/saudi-arabia

Publications - 'Kites in Arabia' iBook now free to download

Back in 2014 we launched an iBook that brought together a lot of our research on Kites (see our blog http://www.apaame.org/2014/09/publications-kites-in-arabia-ibook.html).

The iBook is now FREE TO DOWNLOAD!

You may also be interested in the following:
The Global Kites Project: http://www.globalkites.fr/
Arabian Archaeology and Epigraphy Special Issue Desert Kites - Old Structures, New Research: http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/aae.2015.26.issue-2/issuetoc (Pay Wall)

You can browse thousands of photographs of Kites from Jordan in our archive.

Publications (Correction): Pioneers Above Jordan

It has just come to our attention that the article

David Kennedy 2012 'Pioneers Above Jordan: revealing a prehistoric landscape', Antiquity 86 (332): 474-491.

contains an error for the image and caption of figure 10.

The image in the text is the following:

Ausaji Kite 28. Photographer: David Kennedy (APAAME_20091008_DLK-0167).

The caption should identify the site as 'Ausaji Kite 28'.

The caption in the published text is that for the following image:

Wisad Kite 14. Photographer: Robert Bewley (APAAME_20091004_RHB-0073).

The caption from the article reads as follows:

Wisad Kite 14 (APAAME 20091004 RHB-0073). A kite surrounded by an immense tangle of walls, few of them visible at ground level. In the top left is the Wisad Police Post on the Airmail Track.

Publications: Khatt Shebib

The Khatt Shebib. Photographer: Robert Bewley (APAAME_20051002_RHB-0069).

Recently the academic journal Zeitschrift für Orient-Archäologie published our article on the wall feature in Jordan known as the 'Khatt Shebib'. The content of this article was recently reported on by Owen Jarus in the online science website 'LiveScience' - '93-Mile-Long Ancient Wall in Jordan Puzzles Archaeologists'. 

The LiveScience feature has led to other media taking up the story. 

The feature was investigated remotely in the course of the active aerial reconnaissance program - the Aerial Archaeology in Jordan project, as well as visited on the ground. The study utilised historical imagery (mainly 1953) and maps, as well as several archaeological survey reports conducted on different sections of the wall, notably those directed by B. MacDonald (Wadi el-Hasa, Tafila to Busayra, and Ayl to Ras an-Naqab Archaeological Surveys), F. Abudanh (in the region of Udruh) and G. Findlater (the Dana Archaeological Survey).

You can find the tagged images of the Khatt Shebib on our Flickr page by following this link.

The synthesis of the information gathered has potentially raised more questions than those that we were able to answer, and we hope this study will soon be followed up by a comprehensive ground investigation of the entire feature and sites directly associated with it which may be dateable.

David Kennedy & Rebecca Banks 2015. 'The Khatt Shebib in Jordan: From the Air and Space', Zeitschrift für Orient-Archäologie 8: 132-154.

Publications: Kites in Saudi Arabia

The November 2015 Special Issue of 'Arabian Archaeology and Epigraphy' Desert Kites - Old Structures, New Research contains a paper on this project's research into the Kites in Saudi Arabia conducted by David Kennedy, Rebecca Banks and Matthew Dalton. The paper specifically focuses on the case study area of Harret Khaybar.

The collection of papers is the result of a stimulating workshop on Kites organised by Dr. Ueli Brunner and held at ICAANE IX in Basel, Switzerland (See blogs: May 2, 2014, and June 23, 2014).

David Kennedy, Rebecca Banks & Matthew Dalton
Kites in Saudi Arabia
Arabian Archaeology and Epigraphy Vol. 26 iss. 2
Pages 177-195
DOI: 10.1111/aae.12053

The paper can be accessed through Wiley Online Library.

Publications: Thapsacus and Zeugma

A recently published book East and West in the World Empire of Alexander: Essays in Honour of Brian Bosworth contains a chapter on Thapsacus and Zeugma contributed by David L. Kennedy.

David L. Kennedy (2015) 'Thapsacus and Zeugma' in P. Wheatley and E. Baynham (eds) East and West in the World Empire of Alexander: Essays in Honour of Brian Bosworth: 277-298
For more details please visit the Oxford University Press page.

From the Oxford University Press website:  

"The essays in this volume - written by twenty international scholars - are dedicated to Professor Brian Bosworth who has, in over forty-five years, produced arguably the most influential corpus of historical and historiographical research by one scholar. Professor Bosworth's name is often synonymous with scholarship on Alexander the Great, but his expertise also spreads far wider, as the scope of these essays demonstrates. The collection's coverage ranges from Egyptian and Homeric parallels, through Roman historiography, to Byzantine coinage.

However, the life of Alexander provides the volume's central theme, and among the topics explored are the conqueror's resonance with mythological figures such as Achilles and Heracles, his divine pretensions and military display, and his motives for arresting his expedition at the River Hyphasis in India. Some of Alexander's political acts are also scrutinized, as are the identities of those supposedly present in the last symposium where, according to some sources, the fatal poison was administered to the king. Part of the collection focuses on Alexander's legacy, with seven essays examining the Successors, especially Craterus, and Ptolemy, and Alexander's ill-fated surviving dynasty, including Olympias, Eurydice, and Philip III Arrhidaeus."

Goodbye 2014

What a year it has been!

6 flights of aerial reconnaissance as part of the Aerial Archaeology in Jordan Project 2014
9,522 aerial photographs taken as part of the Aerial Archaeology in Jordan Project 2014
3,216 slides/film digitised
17,344 images cataloged and uploaded to our Flickr archive

Conferences attended:

• Green Arabia, University of Oxford, April 2-4, 2014
• 9th International Conference on the Archaeology of the Ancient Near East, June 9-13, 2014

Presentations:

• The Parlitalia Lecture - "The Roman Army in Arabia" by David Kennedy to The Italian Association of British Columbia, in Vancouver
• Lansdowne Lectures at the University of Victoria, BC (three lectures and a seminar) presented by David Kennedy.
• Paper by Kennedy, Banks and Dalton - 'Kites in Saudi Arabia' in a Workshop on Kites at ICAANE IX, in Basel
• David Kennedy seminar at the Department of Archaeology, University of Manchester
• Robert Bewley (supported by PEF) workshop - Introduction to Aerial Archaeology March 1st-4th, 2014 at Al-Hussein Bin Talal University, Petra.
• Robert Bewley lecture Aerial Archaeology in Britain, Europe and the Middle East to MA in Landscape Archaeology students, University of Oxford, November 2014.

Publications:

• David Kennedy (2013) Remote Sensing and ‘Big Circles’: A New Type of Prehistoric Site in Jordan and Syria, Zeitschrift für Orient-Archäologie 6: 44-63.
• David Kennedy, (2014) 'Nomad Villages' in north-eastern Jordan: from Roman Arabia to Umayyad Urdunn, Arabian Archaeology and Epigraphy 25: 96-109.
• David Kennedy with Rebecca Banks and Paul Houghton (2014) Kites in 'Arabia', Emergent Form for Apple iBooks.
• David L. Kennedy (with Karen Henderson) 2012 (2014) 'The Cairn of Hānī: significance, present condition and context', Annual of the Department of Antiquities, Jordan 56: 483-505. 

Submissions:

• David Kennedy and Rebecca Banks, 'The Khatt Shebib in Jordan: from air and space', Zeitschrift für Orient-Archäologie
• David L. Kennedy and Brett D. Hirsch, 'Prime Suspect: William Cowper Prime in the Holy Land and the identity of 'An American' in Harper's New Monthly Magazine, 1858', Palestine Exploration Quarterly
• David Kennedy, Rebecca Banks and Matthew Dalton, 'Kites in Saudi Arabia'
  

Research - Jordan 'Big Circles' Publicity

We are receiving a lot of hits and publicity from the Owen Jarus 'Ancient Stone Circles in Mideast Baffle Archaeologists' article published on LiveScience yesterday (30 Oct. 2014). 

DailyMail Online have also followed up with their article 'Mystery of Jordan's Big Circles: Ancient Stone Rings in the Desert have left archaeologists baffled' (Victoria Woollaston, 30 Oct. 2014).

If you are interested in accessing the original article by Prof. David Kennedy in Zeitschrift für Orient-Archäologie 6 please see our blog for publication details: Publications: Remote Sensing and ‘Big Circles’ A New Type of Prehistoric Site in Jordan and Syria 

The Syrian 'Big Circle' was discovered and investigated by Graham Phillip and Jennie Bradbury and published in the journal Levant, you can access their article through Maney Online: 'Pre-Classical Activity in the Basalt Landscape of the Homs Region, Syria: Implications for the Development of 'Sub-Optimal' Zones in the Levant During the Chalcolithic-Early Bronze Age'.

If you are interested in seeing more photographs taken in the course of our investigation of the structures on the ground and from the air, please visit our Flickr page and search for 'Big Circle'.

Jordan Big Circle 6. © APAAME_20090930_DLK-0263.

Publications: Cairn of Hani- Significance, Present Condition and Context

The latest edition (2012) of the Annual of the Department of Antiquities, Jordan has been published with a contribution by David Kennedy with Karen Henderson.

David L. Kennedy (with Karen Henderson) 2012 (2014) 'The Cairn of Hānī: significance, present condition and context', Annual of the Department of Antiquities, Jordan 56: 483-505.

Cairn of Hani. Photographer: Michael Neville. APAAME_20090928_MJN-540.

Abstract: The Ḥarrat ash-Shām, the Basalt Desert of north-eastern Jordan, is strewn with thousands of stone structures; cairns are the most common but few have ever been systematically investigated. The Cairn of Hānī, identified some 60 years ago, is a rare example of a 'Safaitic' cairn with an intact burial which was then systematically excavated and published. Very few other cairns have been excavated since then and the Cairn of Hānī remains by far the most important and informative. Sadly it is now being damaged and may soon be destroyed. The aims of this article are to review the significance of this important cairn, to report on its parlous present condition and to place it in the context of both the handful of other excavated cairns in the region and of the numerous other ancient stone-built structures visible from the air within its immediate orbit.

The article can be accessed on Prof. David Kennedy's academia.edu page: https://www.academia.edu/8735727/The_Cairn_of_Hani_significance_present_condition_and_context

Publications: Kites in 'Arabia' (iBook)

Apple iBooks has just published (1 September) a new book by Prof. David Kennedy with Rebecca Banks and Emergent Form's Paul Houghton on Kites in 'Arabia'.

Kites in 'Arabia'
David Kennedy with Rebecca Banks and Paul Houghton
September 1, 2014
iBooks for iPad or Mac OS X 10.9 or later
Emergent Form
225 pages
US$4.99/ AU$5.99/ £2.99
Edit 25/20/2016 - the iBook is free to Download.

The book offers an approachable survey and analysis of the stone built structures known as Kites  found throughout Arabia - the huge arid region extending from south-eastern Turkey through Syria, Iraq, Jordan and Saudi Arabia to Yemen.  The volume examines Kites from their first discovery by the RAF pilots who were the 'Pioneers' of aerial photography in the inter-war period in Transjordan to recent research and interpretation conducted by various professionals in the field. Distribution, form and function of the Kites is discussed and extensively illustrated with references provided throughout. The volume benefits from David Kennedy's long established interest and passion for aerial photography and archaeology in the Middle East, and draws on the extensive reconnaissance performed by the Aerial Archaeology in Jordan Project and historical imagery research of the APAAME Project. The book also includes extensive appendices illustrating types and locations of Kites across 'Arabia', and historical accounts of Kites by early explorers in the Middle East.

The medium of iBook was chosen for two primary reasons: accessibility and inclusion of illustrations. We have made the iBook available for just US$4.99/ AU$5.99/ £2.99 to make the publication affordable. Images have been profusely included to illustrate the features described, something that would have astronomically increased publication costs in a printed edition. Moreover the electronic format allows for interactive features which enhance the illustrative elements and for video interviews and footage taken from the helicopter.

Heavy on content, the iBook does come out at roughly 1GB to download, but fortunately will only ever be as heavy as carrying around your laptop or iPad.

Publications: 'Nomad Villages' in North-Eastern Jordan

The May 2014 edition of Arabian Archaeology and Epigraphy features a new publication by David Kennedy.

'Nomad Villages' in north-eastern Jordan: from Roman Arabia to Umayyad Urdunn
David L. Kennedy
Arabian Archaeology and Epigraphy, Volume 25 (May 2014): 96-109
Available through Wiley Online Library : http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/aae.12033/abstract

Contemporary with the well known and striking Desert Castles and Qusur of the desert steppe in the early Islamic period in the Near East emerged another group of sites - dispersed villages, here termed 'Nomad Villages'. Kennedy's article, amply accompanied by photographs and plans, augments recent discoveries and fieldwork to enrich our knowledge of the traces of these dispersed settlements.

Publications: Remote Sensing and ‘Big Circles’ A New Type of Prehistoric Site in Jordan and Syria

The most recent annual edition of the periodical Zeitschrift für Orient-Archäologie (ZOrA) features a research article by Professor David Kennedy on a series of 'Big Circle' stone structures.

APAAME_20081008_DLK-0287 Photographer: David Kennedy.

Abstract from the article:
Circular stone structures are common throughout the Middle East and can date to almost any period. To date at least 12 examples have been recorded in Jordan but now a single further example near Homs in Syria has been published. The latter is one of the few to have been examined in some detail on the ground; most are known only from brief reports although all the Jordanian examples may be viewed on the Flickr site of the Aerial Photographic Archive for Archaeology in the Middle East (APAAME). Dating is problematic in every case, though they seem certainly to be pre-Roman.

David Kennedy (2013) Remote Sensing and ‘Big Circles’: A New Type of Prehistoric Site in Jordan and Syria, Zeitschrift für Orient-Archäologie 6: 44-63.

Publications: Settlement and Soldiers in the Roman Near East

Ashgate Publishing contacted us last year regarding publishing a compilation of David Kennedy's past papers in a 'Variorum' volume. The unifying theme of this collection is Settlement and Soldiers in the Roman Near East, and the final result is a compilation of thirteen papers originally published in different sources from 1980 through to 2006. The volume includes a Preface, Addenda and Index for the included papers, as well as all images from the original papers.

David Kennedy

Settlement and Soldiers in the Roman Near East

Variorum Collected Studies Series: CS 1032 

Ashgate Publishing

2013

ISBN: 9781409464365

http://www.ashgate.com/isbn/9781409464365
Hardback, 300 pages
66 black and white illustrations
244 x 169 mm format
Contents
Preface



From the Ashgate website:
The Roman Near East has been a source of fascination and exasperation - an immense area, a rich archaeological heritage as well as documents in several local languages, a region with a great depth of urbanisation and development … yet relatively neglected by modern researchers and difficult to work on and in. Local archaeologists are often under-funded and the Roman period viewed as an earlier phase of western colonialism.

Happily, the immense surge in archaeological and historical research on the Roman period everywhere has included the Roman Near East and there have been significant academic developments.

This collection of studies on the Roman Near East represents Professor Kennedy’s academic assessment of the region, which began with his doctoral thesis on the contribution of Syria to the Roman army. Although the thesis was never published, several articles owe their genesis to work done then or soon after and are included here (VI, VII, IX, XII). Initial visits to military sites in Syria and Jordan swiftly brought out the presence in many cases of associated civil settlements and - though often now gone, the traces of ancient field systems. Hence, the two prominent sub-themes in this collection are the Roman military and various aspects of society and settlement - settlement types, farming, logistical underpinning and communications.

Qatar Workshop in Aerial Archaeology - Zubara

The workshop participants.

In February this year Bob Bewley organised a Workshop in Aerial Archaeology hosted by the recently founded University College London campus in Qatar. (UCL-Q). The Workshop followed those held in Jordan in 2006 and 2008. This time the presenters were Bob (from UK), Wlodek Rączkowski from University of Poznan (Poland) and myself (UWA).

A component of a successful Workshop is to take the students to an archaeological site for which we have aerial photographs to enable them to see at first hand what the photographs add to knowledge and how they aid interpretation. In this case the site chosen was the 18th and 19th century Arab town of Zubara on the north coast of Qatar.

Aerial photograph of Zubara, Qatar. Thanks to Prof. Alan Walmsley for permission to use this aerial photo.

Zubara began life as a sheltered port for pearl-fishing in the Gulf but grew considerably as a port and processing centre for dates. At its peak it covered 60 ha – a long town with considerable traces of regular layout, several major buildings and a surrounding wall. Canals linked inland to a water source. Today it is completely deserted – apart from a team of archaeologists from University of Copenhagen. The latter are led by Prof. Alan Walmsley, a New Zealander who was a Post-Doctoral Fellow at UWA for two years and worked with me in Turkey at Zeugma.

Zubara, Qatar, viewed at ground level. Photo: David Kennedy.

At ground level the site is not very informative – many traces of protruding walls, the city wall, the trough of a canal …. From the air it looks superb and details emerge. Better still in many ways, the aerial view gives an immediate view of the entire site and its context in a way numerous ground photos will never do.

A fuller account of the Workshop can be found in Bob Bewley, David Kennedy & Wlodek Rączkowski 'Aerial Archaeology Workshop in Doha, Qatar: February 10th to 14th 2013', Aerial Archaeology Research Group News (AARGNews) 46 (March 2013): 15-18. The AARG website can be found HERE.

DLK

Publications: Győző Vörös MACHAERUS I

Machaerus photographed by Robert Bewley.
(APAAME_20060910_RHB-0022)

Today we received a copy of Machaerus I. History, Archaeology and Architecture of the Fortified Herodian Royal Palace and City overlooking the Dead Sea in Transjordan by Győző Vörös. The volume is beautifully researched and illustrated, but we may be biased because the volume uses some APAAME images.

For more information on the volume, please visit the Edizioni Terra Santa website.

Publications - Historical Aerial Imagery in Jordan and the Wider Middle East

Hot off the press!
Robert Bewley and David L. Kennedy, 2013, 'Historical Aerial Imagery in Jordan and the Wider Middle East' pp. 221-242 in: William S. Hanson and Iona A. Oltean (eds) Archaeology from Historical Aerial and Satellite Archives, Springer: New York/Heidelberg/Dordrecht/London.
ISBN: 978-1-4614-4504-3

The book or eBook can be purchased from the Springer website: http://www.springer.com/social+sciences/anthropology+%26+archaeology/book/978-1-4614-4504-3

Publications- Bulletins

Bit of a catch up on some bulletins from the last few months:


Bob Bewley with David Kennedy, Mat Dalton & Rebecca Banks, 'Aerial Archaeology in Jordan: 2010-2012', Aerial Archaeology Research Group News, Vol. 45, September 2012: 74-81.
Available to members from their website.

Fiona Baker & David L. Kennedy 'Jarash Hinterland Survey' in: Keller, Porter & Tuttle, 'Newsletter: Archaeology in Jordan, 2010 and 2011 Seasons', American Journal of Archaeology, Vol. 116, No. 4, October 2012: 702-703.

David Kennedy & Bob Bewley, 'The Harret al-Shaam, from Air and Space' in: 'Long-term Landscape Environment and Climate Change Studies, from the Past through to Predictive Models for  Future Developments', Bulletin of the Council for British Research in the Levant, Vol. 7, No. 1, October 2012: 60-62.
Available through IngentaConnect.

Publications - APAAME photo in December issue Antiquity

APAAME_20120522_DLK-0096. Photograph: David L. Kennedy

Featuring in the latest issue of Antiquity is this photograph taken by David Kennedy on the 22 May 2012 during our last season of flying in Jordan. You can read more about the photograph and its features in the journal's Editorial:
Editorial, Antiquity, Vol 86 No 334 December 2012: 966. http://antiquity.ac.uk/journal.html#editorial

Publications: Kites–new discoveries and a new type

The discovery of an unusual specimen of kite with a limited distribution between Palmyra and Damascus in Syria led to the formulation of this journal article by David L. Kennedy.




David L. Kennedy (2012) 'Kites–new discoveries and a new type', Arabian Archaeology and Epigraphy 23.2:145-155. You can find it at Wiley Online Library.




The 'sock' kite, fondly at first referred to as a 'Hockey Stick' kite, then (as we were feeling seasonal) a 'Christmas stocking' kite, with its narrow elongated 'shaft' and 'head' off to one side, forms the basis of this article. The discussion encompasses the form, distribution and geography of the new Kite type.

We also cover the extent of our current research on Kites in Arabia, and the article is generously accompanied by useful maps and distribution diagrams of Syria, Jordan and Saudi Arabia, and diagrams of the new Kite type.

Publications: Epistula Newsletter

A short reflection on the 2011 Flying Season in the current issue of Epistula: Newsletter for the Society for the Promotion of Roman Studies, featuring an image of the ancient Roman town of Masuh.

Epistula III, p.6.

You can find out more about the society and their newsletter on their website: http://www.romansociety.org/archaeology/e-newsletter-epistula.html.