Area of study: Hejaz Railway from Ma’an to Mudawwara.
Status of Project and date of conduction: Project was 2006 to 2014. It was completed in November 2014.
Partners: University of Bristol (UK) and University of Al Hussein bin Talal, Ma’an (Jordan); also considerable help from the Department of Antiquities (Amman), the Aqaba Railway Company (Ma’an), the Council for British Research in the Levant, and HRH Prince Hassan bin Tallal.
Brief about the Project: A project of Modern Conflict Archaeology concerning the Arab Revolt of 1916-18 along the line of the Hejaz Railway between Ma’an and Mudawwara. Exploration and investigation of previously unknown sites built by the Ottomans to defend the railway, Arab-British overnight camps for launching guerilla attacks on the railway, and the sites of conflict and battles.
Significant Finds: Around 100 sites (as above) most of which were unknown to academic archaeology and the Department of Antiquities (Amman). These included overnight camps for Rolls Royce armoured car attacks, miniature defended landscapes, Ottoman Turkish hill-top redoubts (karakolls), Ottoman Turkish Army camps, Ottoman Turkish Hejaz Railway construction camps, the ambush site of Hallat Ammar, and the previously ‘lost’ site of the Royal Flying Corps advance landing aerodrome of Disi.
Local community engagement (employment and public awareness): Co-operation with and help from local Bedouin; at Ma’an, visits by local community schoolchildren; at Mudawwara, the invaluable help of Sheikh Khaled Suleiman Al-Atoun. Several lectures to students at University of Al Hussein bin Talal, Ma’an.
Publications related to the project:
Saunders, N.J. (2018/19) Desert Insurgency: Archaeology, T E Lawrence, and the Arab Revolt. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Faulkner, N. (2016) Lawrence of Arabia’s War. London: Yale University Press.
Faulkner, N. and N.J. Saunders (2014) Excavating a Legend: Lawrence of Arabia’s Desert Campsite at Tooth Hill. Current World Archaeology 66 (August-September): 30-35.
Faulkner, N. and N.J. Saunders. (2009) War without frontiers: The archaeology of the Great Arab Revolt. In, B. Peacock (ed.), The Frontiers of the Ottoman World, pp 431-451. Proceedings of the British Academy 156. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Faulkner, N., N.J. Saunders, and D. Thorpe. (2007) Trains, trenches and Tents: The Archaeology of Lawrence of Arabia’s War. Current World Archaeology, 23 (June/July), pp 26-34.
Saunders, N.J. (2010) Killing Time: archaeology and the First World War, pp 247-251. (2nd ed.) Stroud: Sutton.
Saunders, N.J. (2010) Spuren im Sand: Revolte in Jordanien 1916-18. In, M. Fansa and D. Hoffmann (eds.), Lawrence Von Arabien: Genese eines Mythos, pp 265-273. Mainz am Rhein: Verlag Philipp Von Zabern.
Saunders, N.J. and N. Faulkner. (2010) Fire on the Desert: Conflict Archaeology and the
Great Arab Revolt in Southern Jordan 1916-1918. Antiquity 84 (324): 514-527.
Shqiarat, M., Z. Al-Salameen, N. Faulkner and N.J. Saunders. (2011) Fire and Water: Tradition and Modernity in the Archaeology of Steam Locomotion in a Desert War. Levant 43 (1):98-113.
Winterburn, J.B. (2016) The Conflict Landscapes of Southern Jordan. Unpublished PhD thesis. University of Bristol.
Winterburn, J. B. (2012) Hadrian and the Hejaz Railway, In Saunders, N. J. (Ed.) Beyond the Dead Horizon: Studies in Modern Conflict Archaeology, pp 172-187. Oxford: Oxbow Books.
Winterburn, J. B. (2011) 'Flying the Line', Current World Archaeology, 46, April/May: 54-57.