Fire on the desert: conflict archaeology and the Great Arab Revolt in Jordan, 1916-18.

Fire on the desert: conflict archaeology and the Great Arab Revolt in Jordan, 1916-18. [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Introduction The archaeology of the First World War is not confined to the deepverticality of the Western Front's industrialised battlefields inFrance and Belgium. In the Middle East, in that part of the OttomanEmpire that is today southern Jordan, there exist vast areas transformedby war, and whose existence has only recently been recognised. These arenot so much 90-year-old fossilised battlefields as 'conflictlandscapes', defined by their horizontal nature and the palimpsestof meanings they embody. Their investigation offers a differentperspective on the global conflict and provides insights into the clashbetween the kin-based tribalism of traditional societies and theindustrialised modernity of Western democracies. It also yields valuablelessons for a multidisciplinary archaeology of twentieth-centuryconflict as it casts off the straitjacket of traditional'Battlefield Archaeology'. The archaeology of the First World War in this region preserves thedesert signatures of that conflict and is entangled also with the GreatArab Revolt of 1916-18. These two events heralded the collapse of theOttoman Empire, the post-war reshaping of the Middle East and theeventual establishment of the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan. Thearchaeological correlates of these momentous events lie scattered acrossthe wadis and escarpments of southern Jordan. They are the materialtraces of the beginnings of modern guerrilla warfare as espoused by T.E.Lawrence (Lawrence [1929] in Brown 2005: 275-84). This method of war,albeit reconfigured by modern technologies, still characterises thisviolently contested region from Gaza to Baghdad (Fisk 2007). The relationship between guerrilla warfare, archaeology andpolitics in this region is also uniquely embodied by T.E. Lawrencehimself. Having studied the Levant's Crusader castles first handfor his thesis at Oxford University, he excavated at Carcemish innorthern Syria between 1911 and 1913, first with David Hogarth and thenLeonard Woolley (Wilson 1990: 57-134), and spent several months on asurvey expedition to the Sinai desert (Wilson 1990: 134-44). When warbroke out in August 1914, Lawrence's experience of the OttomanMiddle East, together with his knowledge of Arabic, inspired andunderpinned his role in British military intelligence. His lack offormal military training, unorthodox thinking and personal attachment tothe Arabs would lead him to play an influential role in the events tocome, and which are best known through his own account, Seven Pillars ofWisdom (2003) and as a romantic and enigmatic figure in David Leans 1962film, Lawrence of Arabia. The conflict landscape of southern Jordan incorporated, and waspartly defined by, the Hejaz Railway, which was built between 1900 and1908 and ran from Damascus to Medina (Figure 1). Authorised by theageing Sultan Abdiilhamit II, the railway had pan-Islamic appeal andsubstantiated his claim to the caliphal title by facilitating the annualHaj pilgrimage to Mecca (Landau 1971: 19-20; Quataert 2006: 98). It alsohad strategic significance, bypassing the British-controlled Suez Canal,giving direct access to the Red Sea (and thereby threatening BritishIndia) and allowing Ottoman troops to be rapidly deployed to theempire's distant and increasingly dissident Arabian territories.These strategic considerations were not lost on the 'YoungTurks' who came to power in the revolution of 1908-9, nor on theGermans with whom they aligned themselves in November 1914. Investigating battle-zone landscapes of the First World War revealsthe complex challenges facing the archaeology of modern conflict(Saunders 2001, 2002). Studying the militarised landscapes of the HejazRailway adds further interdisciplinary dimensions, as it contributes toan industrial archaeology of railways (Tourret 1989) and to thehistorical archaeology of the Ottoman Empire (Baram & Carroll 2000).It also acknowledges the wider relationship between Ottoman railwayconstruction and expanded opportunities for archaeological looting alongthe route, by foreign officials and travellers working with the railwaycompany and with the assistance of locals (Shaw 2003: 133-4). Many of these issues were encountered during our own fieldwork andrequired that research strategies be embedded within local cultural,political, educational and security networks. To this end, for example,local sheikhs were welcomed on site to discuss the project and they inturn arranged visits by schoolchildren. Co-operation in the field witharchaeologists from the Jordanian Department of Antiquities and theal-Hussein bin Talal University at Petra greatly strengthened themultidisciplinary approach of the investigations. Given the nature ofthe project, it was insightful that in a 2006 presentation to localuniversity students, open comparison was made by them between theguerrilla activities of 1916-18 and those of Hizbollah who had recentlydefeated Israel in southern Lebanon. [FIGURE 1 OMITTED] More widely, the focus on the archaeology of the Arab Revolt hasbeen regarded by the Jordan Museum in Amman and the Jordanian Ministryof Tourism as a new way of informing Arab perception of Jordan'sfoundation and presenting it to a regional and international audience.Each level of co-operation highlighted issues of public archaeology,museology, regional identity, historical veracity and the oraltradition, and of local and national heritage and tourism. Guerrilla action, guerrilla landscape Our investigations focused on the hitherto unrecorded physicalremains of the Ottoman defence of the Hejaz Railway, which was aresponse to the widespread low-level guerrilla activity that occurred inthe area after the Arab-British capture of the Red Sea port of Aqaba inJuly 1917. Attacks against Ottoman positions were made by an alliance ofcamel-borne Bedouin, Arab regulars (of the embryonic Hashemite army) andvarious British, Indian and French specialist units (e.g. demolitionexperts, machine-gunners, artillery, and occasionally armoured cars andaircraft). These small, mobile and largely British-funded forcesemployed hit-and-run tactics against a largely immobile Ottoman army,trained, equipped and advised by Germany. T.E. Lawrence saw the possibilities: 'Suppose we were aninfluence (as we might be), an idea, a thing invulnerable, intangible,without front or back, drifting about like gas? ... Our war should be awar of detachment: we were to contain the enemy by the silent threat ofa vast unknown desert... ' (Lawrence [1920] in Brown 2005: 265-6).Lawrence advocated operating in small local groups, fighting in depthnot en face, waging war without set-piece battles, making war onmateriel not men, and constituting an omnipresent but almost alwaysinvisible threat. In 1916-18, this was a radical conception of war. Investigationsaimed to verify the success or failure of Lawrence's guerrillastrategy and to identify and characterise the archaeological imprint ofsuch a 'war of detachment'. In particular, fieldwork sought togive archaeological precision to an understanding of the course ofconflict during 1917-18 between the towns of Ma'an, a strategic hubof the Hejaz Railway, and Wadi Rutm, an isolated Hejaz Railway stationsome 60km to the south. By so doing, it was hoped to add anarchaeological perspective to a conflict hitherto known mainly frommilitary-historical sources, and which would deepen understanding of themilitary and cultural legacies of the First World War beyond the WesternFront (Saunders 2007). Assessing the intensity of Ottoman militarisationof the landscape could also contribute to the long-running debate on themilitary effectiveness of the Arab Revolt. Topography and trenches at Ma'an Ottoman Ma'an was a major communications point, the seat of aprovincial district governor and a fortified military base on the HejazRailway in southern Jordan. Blessed with plentiful water, it had longbeen a centre on the pilgrimage caravan route to Mecca. When the railwayreached the town in 1904, a large station complex was established 1.5kmto the south and Ma'an became the 'Gateway to Arabia'(Nicholson 2005: 37). The Ottoman response to the Arab-British threat, which could appearfrom any direction, was to defend Ma'an by creatively militarisingthe surrounding landscape. Instead of a continuous linear defence--sofamiliar on the Western Front--advantage was taken of local topographyand an elaborate system of strategically sited but discontinuoustrenches and redoubts fortified prominent escarpments and hill-tops.These radiated out from the station and controlled the ground withintersecting arcs of fire in an inner and outer defensive system. Despite this sophistication, these defences were breached by Arabforces and their allies during the First Battle of Ma'an (11-20April 1918), when the outer defences on the 'Hill of JebelSemnah' and the inner defences on the 'Hill of the Birds'were attacked and outlying parts of Ma'an station occupied on 17April. Ottoman counter-attacks quickly recaptured the station, which wasnever again frontally assaulted and which stayed in Ottoman hands untilSeptember 1918, when the garrison surrendered. Four main groups of Ma'an's defences were identified andpartially investigated using contemporary Royal Flying Corps aerialreconnaissance sketches and photographs, recent air-photographs,satellite imagery and GPS survey fieldwork. Excavation focused on themost substantial group of remains, which takes its name from itslocation on the 'Hill of the Birds', just 1km north-west ofthe station (Figure 2). This is composed of a well-preserved crenellatedfiring trench which stretches 725m along the north-west facing scarp anda second similar firing trench 500m long protecting the south-westapproaches. A network of communication trenches served these two majortrenches, three redoubts anchored the system as strong points and fourartillery emplacements were sited near the most substantial andbest-preserved of these--the Northern Redoubt. A systematic gridded metal-detector survey along 500m of the main725m-long firing trench recovered substantial quantities of expendedmunitions that represented both outgoing and incoming small arms fire.In addition to standard First World War calibres--65 German 7.65mmMauser cartridge cases (outgoing) and 59 British .303 bullets(incoming)--there were also 11 outdated Martini-Henry lead bullets(incoming), presumably fired by Bedouin irregulars on the Arab-Britishside. Shell fragments from incoming artillery fire were also recoveredand probably represent the barrages of two small artillery unitsattached to the Arab-British forces (Lawrence 2003: 603). These artefacts probably represent an archaeological trace of thepoorly documented First Battle of Ma'an. Available historicalsources are vague or cursory and give only a brief outline of events(El-Edroos 1980: 136-7; Wilson 1990: 497; Al-Askari 2003: 143-5;Lawrence 2003: 603-4). Hitherto, no physical examination of the conflictzone had been undertaken, its extensive militarised landscape had beenneither fully appreciated nor investigated and no material cultureremains of the battle had been identified or studied. Systematicmetal-detecting identified the location and differential distribution ofincoming and outgoing munitions in relation to surveyed and excavatedtrench systems. It revealed the intensity of activity at differentpoints in the landscape, added material detail and insight to thehistorical record, and documented the horizontal stratigraphy whichcharacterises the conflict landscapes of the Arab Revolt. The main, north-west facing, linear firing trench appears to havebeen shallow (less than 70cm below ground level) and roughly cut intothe soft limestone bedrock. A parapet had been piled up in front of it,which survives to a height of about 20cm. While impressive on aerialphotographs, this trench was not well sited, being overlooked in placesby higher ground--though its crenellations offered protection againstenfilade and direct blast. At some point it was deemed inadequate andwas superseded by a new layout, focused on the Northern Redoubt--acrenellated ring-trench around a natural hill-top, into which had beendug a centrally-placed command bunker. [FIGURE 2 OMITTED] Excavation revealed that the communication trench leading from theredoubt down into the linear firing trench had been blocked when thering-trench was dug, cutting off access to the original line of defence.The new ring-trench was more substantial than the old linear one and inplaces it is still more than 1.5m deep. In 1918, it would have beendeeper still, as the cutting of a 35cm-high fire-step in the base of thetrench demonstrates. The parapet of sandbags, mud-bricks and largestones survives more than 1 m high and 1 m wide. Fire-bays commanded thewestern slopes, and high, deep traverses placed every 5-6m between themprovided protection against enfilade. These investigations suggested two phases of development, withearlier, shallow, linear trenches later supplemented or replaced bydeeply cut ring-trench redoubts. This may represent a change in theOttomans' tactical conception of the war, perhaps as a response tothe weaknesses exposed during the First Battle of Ma'an.Alternatively, this may be a local response to an internationaldevelopment; it may have been due to the earlier 1917 visit by theGerman General Erich von Falkenhayn, whose new ideas of defendinglandscape saw an abandonment of linear defences (epitomised by the 1916Battle of the Somme) and their replacement by a series of interrelatedstrong-points as deployed in the 1917 Battle of Third Ypres(Passchendaele). It might also have been a reaction to manpower problemsfacing the Ottoman forces where tactical rethinking necessitated puttinga premium on economy of force (von Sanders n.d. [1927]; and see Rogan1999: 233). Such tentative conclusions are open to future testing, butindicate archaeology's potential to inform events that are poorlyrecorded in the written sources. Conflict landscapes at Wadi Rutm Contrasting with, yet also complementing and extending insightsgained at Ma'an, is the site of Wadi Rutm. Located 60km south ofMa'an, in the spectacular but isolated wadi of the same name, thesite is one of 77 Hejaz Railway stations built along the line fromDamascus to Medina (Tourret 1989: 11-12, 20-21). Today, it is composedof three much destroyed buildings in the distinctive Late Ottoman styleadopted for the railway (Fahmy 2001), a ruinous 1960s stationbuilding--the relic of a short-lived attempt to revitalise the railway(Nicholson 2005: 175-7)--and adjacent stretches of railway embankment.While all three Ottoman structures are in ruins, the northernmost(Building 1) is comparatively well preserved, with exterior walls hackedthrough in places to provide impromptu loopholes and its interiorplastered walls adorned with graffiti and primitively rendered human andanimal figures. Building 3 (the southernmost) preserves similar featuresand what appear to be crude rooftop-parapets of assembled stones (Figure3). While Wadi Rutm station offered little prospect for investigationbeyond a standing buildings assessment, field reconnaissance added a newdimension to understanding the area and, more widely, the nature andphysical remains of the Arab Revolt in southern Jordan. It became clearthat Wadi Rutm station was located within an extensive, largelyunrecognised Ottoman militarisation of the landscape. This wasparticularly useful, as Lawrence nowhere comments on the location, sizeor configuration of Ottoman defences within the wadi or the system ofwhich they were clearly a part. Beyond the wadi, only sparse andimprecise anecdotal reference had hitherto been made to Ottomanstrong-points, despite the fact that their presence had shapedArab-British military operations (Lawrence 2003: 517-18, 606-607; P.Joyce in Nicholson 2005: 147). [FIGURE 3 OMITTED] Effective Ottoman control of the Wadi Rutm area depended on theinter-visibility of isolated military sites in a landscape whereravines, spurs, and the sinuous route of the railway conspired to blockdirect lines of sight between the station and outlying strong-points(Figure 4). The sophistication of the Ottoman solution to this problemis illustrated by three different sites associated with the station andeach other and which we investigated in 2006 and 2007. One kilometre north-west of the station, a defended Ottoman armycamp on a commanding flat-topped hill dominated the adjacent railway tothe north-east and the traditional route through the wadi to thesouth-west. Designated 'Wadi Rutm Camp', this site had firingdugouts with stone parapets located at either end of the hill and about20 stone-lined tent-rings distributed across the plateau (Figure 5).Though similar in appearance to Bedouin tent-rings (Simms 1988; Saidel2001: 152), they are distinctively different, occurring in substantialgroups, laid out with linear regularity and with a uniformity of shapeand size (mainly small circles and rectangles). Their military identityis confirmed by a diagnostic artefact assemblage, which includes in situwooden tent pegs, fragments of tent canvas and sand bags, and manyOttoman army uniform buttons with their distinctive crescent moon andstar decoration. [FIGURE 4 OMITTED] The discovery of an Ottoman pipe bowl on this windswept hill is alonely but eloquent material metaphor for a world being changed byglobal war. This item is indicative of the international genesis of'traditional' Arab culture as the shape of Ottoman pipe bowlsoriginated, not in Europe (with its English-style kaolin pipes), but inWest African styles that diffused north into Egypt and thence the Levant(Baram 2000: 149). Once emblems of Ottoman rule, these objectstransformed into symbols of imperial collapse when their productionended in 1918 (Baram 2000: 152). The encampment is invisible from the station, a problem solved byestablishing a small defended observation point/machine-gun position ona hillock lying 200m north-west of the station. From this point ofinter-visibility, flag semaphore or heliograph could have conveyedmessages between the station and the encampment, thereby using aneconomy of force by giving troops ample time to move from one locationto the other. [FIGURE 5 OMITTED] The view to the south from the station is also blocked bygeographical features. This was overcome by a large rectangularfortified observation post of dry-wall construction on a 1130m-highsandstone ridge overlooking the station from the north-east anddesignated by us 'Wadi Rutm Fort'. From here, a commandingview extended southwards out of the wadi and followed the railway'scourse to the next Hejaz station at Tel Shahm, 15km away. Initialreconnaissance at this fortified ridge yielded German Mauser cartridges,Ottoman army buttons and shrapnel fragments. Several well-sited trenchesdug into the precipitous approaches protected it with intersecting arcsof fire and overlooked Wadi Rutm station (Figure 6). These three sites epitomise the Ottoman response to unpredictableguerrilla attack and were an attempt to control difficult ground withlimited forces by a sophisticated use of the landscape. Despite passingreference to Wadi Rutm station, no historical source identifies thislocal system of integrated defence or the larger network of sites withinwhich it was situated. At the northern head of the wadi--which changes its name halfwayalong from Wadi Rutm to Wadi Bam Al-Ghoul--a large and impressivecliff-top fortification overlooks a strategic bend in the Hejaz Railwayas it descends almost 100m from the plateau to the wadi floor (Figure7). This site, designated 'Fassu'ah Ridge', possessesfortified gun-points, an area of administrative buildings (including aparade ground) and internal trench systems. Lying at the hub of smallersatellite positions along the escarpment, it has its own access'road' to a presumed halt on the railway and a trackway to theremains of a large tented encampment at the (now destroyed) station ofBam Al-Ghoul. Despite its size, complex structure and strategicposition, and its possible function as a command-and-control centre forthe whole wadi, no mention is made of this site in the historicalsources. [FIGURE 6 OMITTED] Similarly unknown, and a by-product of our investigations, was theidentification of a probable traditional 'place of assembly'or overnight stop in the central section of Wadi Rutm--whose entirelength has long been part of the Syrian caravan pilgrimage route southto Mecca--the Darb al-Hajj al-Shami. Analysis of the miscellaneous smallfinds is ongoing, but numismatic inspection revealed that the 101recovered coins were mainly fourteenth-century Mamluk and fifteenth- tonineteenth-century Ottoman (Zeyad al-Salameen pers. comm.). Althoughoutside our temporal remit, this archaeological evidence of continuityrepresents an earlier phase of use for this route which pre-dated thenearby Hejaz Railway, itself superseded by a 1920s asphalt-coveredstone-built road, which in turn was replaced by the modern highway.Traces of the Arab Revolt of 1916-18 are thus embedded in a landscapewhich, despite its appearance as an untouched natural wilderness,contains the archaeological remains of diverse forms of transit throughthe wadi for at least 700 years, from Muslim (and possibly much earlier,Nabatean) times, to the late twentieth century. [FIGURE 7 OMITTED] Conclusions Investigations at Ma'an and Wadi Rutm have begun to reveal apreviously unsuspected scale and sophistication in the way the Ottomansconceptualised and materialised their conflict landscapes. Thearchaeological evidence shows that in response to the threat ofunpredictable Arab-British attack from any direction, the Ottomans werecompelled to commit time, manpower and resources into defending anextended area of southern Jordan. While many locations saw brief burstsof action at some point, few became a battlefield in the conventionalsense. The Arab-British threat was ranged in depth rather than in line:the Ottoman defences mirrored this, inasmuch as there were no frontiersand the whole landscape was contested. The preliminary conclusions of fieldwork from 2006 to 2008 suggestthat, from an Ottoman perspective, the Arab Revolt was more militarilyeffective than has been supposed. Small numbers of Arab-British forces,employing modern guerrilla tactics, tied down much larger numbers ofOttoman troops whose archaeological imprint is visible in the extensiveremains of the militarised landscape between Ma'an and Wadi Rutm,and only part of which has been presented here. Recognising and characterising the archaeological signatures ofthese sites has the potential to add detail and insight into events andplaces only fleetingly known (if at all) to western European militaryhistory. While Ottoman presence has a high degree of archaeologicalvisibility (trenches, hill-top redoubts and tented encampments), theArab-British forces are characterised by near total invisibility (thinlayers of incoming bullets and shrapnel). Making sense of Ottomandispositions and faint traces of conflict contributes to anunderstanding of what early modern guerrilla warfare looks like in thearchaeological record. The archaeological remains of Ottoman militarised landscapes havebeen largely unrecognised outside the Bedouin community for some 90years. This has simultaneously protected and endangered many sites thathave subsequently been incorporated into a Bedouin mythic terrain ofancestors and spirit forces, and that are variously articulated throughsongs, poems and stories (Hani Falahat pers. comm.; Bienkowski 2007:43-6). The power of the oral tradition and rumour to shape the materialworld, and affect archaeological research, is demonstrated by the factthat most post-1918 damage to Hejaz Railway stations and their defensivefeatures appears to be the result of (often recent) searches for'Turkish/Ottoman gold' (the central pit in Figure 7). Storiesof buried treasure are not infrequently associated with archaeologicalexcavations across the Middle East, but their association with HejazRailway landscapes and the Arab Revolt may have a particular historicalresonance. During the conflict, the Ottomans, Germans and British all paidlarge sums for Bedouin co-operation. Lawrence became the Britishpaymaster to the tribal sheikhs, handing over vast amounts in goldsovereigns to buy their military support (James 1995: 187-8). Thesepayments allowed powerful tribal leaders to enhance their status byfeeding and supporting their followers at a time of Syrian crop failureand the economic hardships of war. During the post-war years, a powerfulnew variant of the old folklore tradition emerged, which saw the varioussources of wartime wealth generically labelled as 'Turkishgold'. Such treasures became identified with the Hejaz Railway asthe most visible remains of those momentous (and heavily mythologised)historical events. History may be equivocal (if not silent) on the details of much ofwhat happened in the deserts of southern Jordan between 1916 and 1918,but archaeology is not. Investigations are revealing a traditionallandscape transformed by modern industrialised war, the archaeologicaltraces of an empire at bay in the face of desert insurgency, and thematerial traces of a prototype of guerrilla war destined to shape thetwentieth century. Acknowledgements We are grateful for the help and support of all of the following:the GARP archaeologists and volunteers who worked on the 2006, 2007 and2008 field seasons; HaM Falahat, Inspector of Antiquities at Ma'an;Dr Zeyad al-Salameen and Dr Mansour Shqiarat of the al-Hussein bin TalalUniversity; Jihad Kafafi of the Jordan Museum; Engineer Hussein Krishanof the Aqaba Railway; Dr Fawwaz al-Khraisha and the staff of theDepartment of Antiquities in Amman; Bill Finlayson and the staff of theCouncil for British Research in the Levant in Amman; and HRH PrinceHassan bin Talal. The 'Great Arab Revolt Project' website is athttp://www.jordanarchaeology 1914-18.org Received: 2 June 2008; Revised: 24 June 2009; Accepted: 7 July 2009 References AL-ASKARI, J.P. 2003. A soldier's story:from Ottoman rule toindependent Iraq. London: Arabian Publishing. BARAM, U. 2000. Entangled objects from the Palestinian past:archaeological perspectives for the Ottoman Period, 1500-1900, in U.Baram & L. Carroll (ed.) A historical archaeology of the OttomanEmpire: breaking new ground: 137-59. New York: Kluwer/Plenum. BARAM, U. & L. CARRROLL. 2000. The future of the Ottoman past,in U. Baram & L. Carroll (ed.) A historical archaeology of theOttoman Empire: breaking new ground: 3-32. New York: Kluwer/Plenum. BIENKOWSKI, P. 2007. Tribes, borders, landscapes and reciprocalrelations: the Wadi Arabah and its meaning. Journal of MediterraneanArchaeology 20(1): 33-60. BROWN, M. (ed.) 2005. T.E. Lawrence in war and peace: an anthologyof the military writings of Lawrence of Arabia. 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