Day 5 - Back to Batn Al-Ghul and a seal shreik

Although we weren't going to the deep south today, and with a planned journey time of around an hour and a half, we had a 6.00 am breakfast and left at 7.00. The idea was to maximise our work time second day at Batn Al-Ghul and also provide enough time to trek up to Fassuah Ridge, which many of this year's team have not seen. As so often happens with plans in projects like these they were best laid but altered by events. 

The weather this morning was really lovely, warm enough to not need a jacket but not searingly hot, a gentle breeze, blue skies and occasional fluffy clouds. Perfect conditions to continue with the excavation of the tent rings in the Northern late Ottoman Camp. 

Excavating, transporting and sieving for finds

Salah,one of our drivers, brought his son Ahmad to join us in the dig today

Ahmad - archaeologist of the future?

Thinking on a rock in the desert

Anna tries detecting

Anna our finds supervisor has been part of the team for a while, and this is in fact her seventh season. During this time she has never managed to find so much as an Ottoman army button. Today we persuaded her to have a quick go with one of the metal detectors, and after a brief bit of training she got a signal inside one one the rings. With more advice on how to reveal her find she dug, scraped and hand sifted the sand with an archaeological trowel to eventually unearth a fantastic find - a complete, (if a little bent) Ottoman army officers's personal seal. The shriek of delight could probably have been heard in Ma'an.

Elsewhere the rather rare sight of Neil Faulkner holding a trowel the right way round and pointing it at a feature close enough to do damage was thought worthy of recording for posterity.

The mighty goofa, used to transport excavated material for sieving, and tools to and from the site

Lunch! 

We didn't get to see Fassuah ridge today. The rain came back mid afternoon and the decision was hastily made to decamp for the day. Tomorrow we will be back here again and the plan is to make the Fassuah trip early in the day, provided the weather is suitable. If we do get there in good weather, the place is located in a fantastic, high position overlooking the wadi, and the views and pictures are usually extremely impressive. Hopefully that will be so and if you check back on the blog tomorrow they will be published here.

Now to answer yesterday's questions. The artefacts we are finding at Batn Al-Ghul almost certainly represent both the mainstream life of a late Ottoman army camp mixed in with some items lost by passing travellers. The camp site sits atop the plateau at the head of the escarpment down into Southern Jordan, and the route is one which has been used for thousands of years by  pilgrims on their way to Mecca and Medina, by traders travelling to buy and sell all manner of wares, and by the Bedouin who travel in huge numbers with their families, possessions and animals both north and south as the seasons change. Indeed, one year whilst working on the hilltop fort at Fassuah, we watched the mass migration of thousands of people and animals across this plain and down into the wadi below. This was a truly inspiring scene, evoking the spirit of the same activity having taken place over millennia.

Consequently the finds here in the camp itself are mainly Ottoman military in nature, but there is a sprinkling into these of lost things from all of the groups above, including jewellery, coins and other artefacts. A true reminder of the multifaceted nature of this evolving conflict landscape.

Which leads on to the second question - the remote desert in Jordan is used by the military here for tank training and other live fire army and air force exercises. This is because the locations are far away from villages and most people, and one supposes the idea is that the landscape and the odd buildings here, much of which are damaged in the course of this training, are of low value. Consequently we come back every year to find sites we have worked on in increasingly destroyed condition. 

Day 4 - return to Batn Al-Ghul

This is the location of the station 1 stop further north up the Hijaz railway line from Wadi Rutm, where we paused briefly yesterday. This represents one of the largest static Ottoman camp sites we have investigated, consisting of two nearby sets of tent rings running alongside the side of the escarpment and the railway line,just before both dip down into what is effectively southern Jordan beyond. 

The Ottomans were here for some time, and the camp sites finds are reflected in this with a significant number and variety of finds. The camps served to provide troops to defend the line and also to enable the passage of supplies of goods and equipment delivered to the station by train and then transferred by land over rocky climbing paths to the fort at Fassuah ridge which overlooks the huge wadi below.

GARP 2013 team investigating the tent rings in the North camp at Batn AL-Ghul

The aim of the archaeological enquiry today was to expand the total assemblage of finds of this typical Ottoman army camp in an attempt to provide characterisation of the range of people and activities present during the conflict. Teams operated within hitherto un-excavated rings performing delicate extraction of the interior followed by sieving and finds collection.

At the same time the metal detecting team skirted the camp at a distance, hoping to find lost artefacts which again represented the activities of the soldiers present here. 

In some of the images it can be seen that these tent rings were well formed, with substantial rock sides to hold down the canvas protecting the soldiers from the elements.

Modern tank scrape

This continues to be a landscape of conflict, with modern tanks using the area for manoeuvres and firing practice. These scrapes are common here and right in the middle of the formation of rings. This further reinforces our desire to obtain as much valuable recorded information as we can while we have access to these sites and before they are trashed beyond the point of sensible investigation.

Sieving extracted sand to reveal finds

For only the second time since we have been pursuing this project, the weather suddenly changed from warm to very stormy, with the consequence that we had to shorten today's activities and head home early. A significant electrical storm approached us from the west producing very high ionisation in the air where we were working, and thunder and lightning within a mile or so. As the rain increased we took the decision to abandon the day, and just everyone just about managed to gather and stow all the tools and jump into the bus before the heavens opened. Definitely the right decision as standing in the middle of an open plateau working with trowels and metal detectors in such conditions is not wise.

Some images of finds from today are below. These include an Ottoman officers personal seal, some coins, a headdress or shirt ornament, what we think might be an ornate caddy spoon made of copper and some tiny pieces of decorative metal with pins for attachment to clothing.

We are back here again tomorrow, with hopefully better weather and more exciting finds to share with you on this blog.