‘View Counts’ on APAAME’s Flickr Site

Since its establishment in 2009, what Flickr calls ‘View Counts’ have reached 7.153 million. After a slow start the number now rises by about a million every few months and the site has 452 ‘Followers’.

A sign of the times is that the all-time most viewed photograph is one of Aleppo, seen 3850 times. Not one taken by our team but the work of No 1 Squadron of the Australian Flying Corps on 23 October 1918 from 7000 feet. It is labelled ‘Aleppo from SW’. The original print is held in The National Archives at Kew in the UK.

The flight – just two and half weeks before the Armistice in Europe, was in the period after the collapse of Ottoman forces in Palestine, Transjordan and southern Syria and 23 days after the Australian Light Horse entered Damascus on 1 October. The photograph is one of several taken by the AFC at that time over Lebanon and Syria (including Damascus on 17 October).

-DLK

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Historical Imagery: Qa' al Jafr Fort

What a difference 86 years can make. Qa' al Jafr, located c. 50km ENE of Ma'an in Jordan looked the picture of health in 1926 when the Royal Air Force flew over and took this magnificent photograph. A large number of bedouin tents and a small heard of camels can be seen in the landscape, dwarfed by the imposing unfinished 'palace'. The structure was built by Turkish prisoners of war under Auda Abu Tayi, a leader of the Great Arab Revolt who had settled in the region. The location took advantage of a nearby well. The structure, probably inspired by Roman, Crusader and Islamic forts, remained unfinished after his death in 1924.

Remains of Qa 'al Jafr Fort September 1926. Photograph: The National Archives, London.

Today: the outer walls are almost completely invisible and the central enclosure is crumbling rapidly. The ruinous state is surprising considering its relatively young age (under 100 years), but is also a reminder of how the physical remains of the past, even if belonging to a recent era, can decay.

Remains of Qa' al Jafr Fort, October 2011. APAAME_20111013_DLK-0228. Photographer: David Kennedy.