Desert Insurgency: Archaeology, T.E. Lawrence, and the Arab Revolt

For 10 years, between 2005 and 2014, the ‘Great Arab Revolt Project’ (GARP) investigated the archaeological remains of the 1916-1918 Arab Revolt in southern Jordan, from Ma’an to Mudawwara. Expecting initially to survey and excavate the mainly ruinous Hejaz Railway stations for perhaps three years, events soon changed this to a 10-year project. The stations were investigated, but it was the unexpected discovery of conflict landscapes in-between the stations and farther out in the desert that required more investigation and was added to by the discovery of over 100 pre-Revolt construction-era camps built by and for the labour gangs who constructed the railway. Discoveries included defensive earthwork ‘karakolls’, stone-built forts, machine-gun positions, Ottoman army campsites, overnight raiding camps for Rolls Royce armoured cars, and even ephemeral Royal Air Force landing grounds. GARP research fleshed out the Revolt in this region, uncovered unsuspected landscapes, and added a new dimension to Jordanian he