Nicholas J. Saunders
- Published in print:
- 2020
- Published Online:
- September 2020
- ISBN:
- 9780198722007
- eISBN:
- 9780191895746
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/oso/9780198722007.003.0010
- Subject:
- Classical Studies, Archaeology: Non-Classical
This concluding chapter provides a summary of the discoveries of the Great Arab Revolt Project (GARP) from the conflict landscape of the Hejaz Railway. A decade in the desert revealed the ...
More
This concluding chapter provides a summary of the discoveries of the Great Arab Revolt Project (GARP) from the conflict landscape of the Hejaz Railway. A decade in the desert revealed the anthropological archaeology of the Arab Revolt of 1916–18 to be more than the excavation of historically recent places or the survey of ruinous station buildings. It was rather an interdisciplinary study of the railway’s heritage from 1900 to the present, its role as a catalyst in creating a unique conflict landscape, and its intriguing relationships with earlier Hajj routes. The railway was also entangled with the beginnings of modern guerrilla warfare, the creation of the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan, and a complex and sometimes volatile mix of traditional Bedouin culture, modernity, religion, and local and national politics. Furthermore, the Revolt itself was embedded in the wider regional and geo-political framework of the First World War and its many aftermaths: the collapse of the Ottoman Empire; the creation of the modern Middle East; the rise of Arab Nationalism; the Second World War; the 2003 invasion and occupation of Iraq; the destructive legacy of the Islamic State’s short-lived Caliphate announced in 2014; and Syria’s descent into a tortuous and tragic civil war.Less
This concluding chapter provides a summary of the discoveries of the Great Arab Revolt Project (GARP) from the conflict landscape of the Hejaz Railway. A decade in the desert revealed the anthropological archaeology of the Arab Revolt of 1916–18 to be more than the excavation of historically recent places or the survey of ruinous station buildings. It was rather an interdisciplinary study of the railway’s heritage from 1900 to the present, its role as a catalyst in creating a unique conflict landscape, and its intriguing relationships with earlier Hajj routes. The railway was also entangled with the beginnings of modern guerrilla warfare, the creation of the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan, and a complex and sometimes volatile mix of traditional Bedouin culture, modernity, religion, and local and national politics. Furthermore, the Revolt itself was embedded in the wider regional and geo-political framework of the First World War and its many aftermaths: the collapse of the Ottoman Empire; the creation of the modern Middle East; the rise of Arab Nationalism; the Second World War; the 2003 invasion and occupation of Iraq; the destructive legacy of the Islamic State’s short-lived Caliphate announced in 2014; and Syria’s descent into a tortuous and tragic civil war.
Nicholas J. Saunders
- Published in print:
- 2020
- Published Online:
- September 2020
- ISBN:
- 9780198722007
- eISBN:
- 9780191895746
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/oso/9780198722007.001.0001
- Subject:
- Classical Studies, Archaeology: Non-Classical
This book explores the once-hidden conflict landscape along the Hejaz Railway in the desert sands of southern Jordan. Built at the beginning of the twentieth century. This railway track stretched ...
More
This book explores the once-hidden conflict landscape along the Hejaz Railway in the desert sands of southern Jordan. Built at the beginning of the twentieth century. This railway track stretched from Damascus to Medina and served to facilitate participation in the annual Muslim Hajj to Mecca. The discovery and archaeological investigation of an unknown landscape of insurgency and counterinsurgency along this route tells a different story of the origins of modern guerrilla warfare; the exploits of T. E. Lawrence, Emir Feisal, and Bedouin warriors; and the dramatic events of the Arab Revolt of 1916–18. Ten years of research in this prehistoric terrain has revealed sites lost for almost 100 years: vast campsites occupied by railway builders; Ottoman Turkish machine-gun redoubts; Rolls-Royce armoured-car raiding camps; an ephemeral Royal Air Force desert aerodrome; as well as the actual site of the Hallat Ammar railway ambush. Ultimately, this unique and richly illustrated account tells, in intimate detail, the story of a seminal episode of the First World War and the reshaping of the Middle East that followed.Less
This book explores the once-hidden conflict landscape along the Hejaz Railway in the desert sands of southern Jordan. Built at the beginning of the twentieth century. This railway track stretched from Damascus to Medina and served to facilitate participation in the annual Muslim Hajj to Mecca. The discovery and archaeological investigation of an unknown landscape of insurgency and counterinsurgency along this route tells a different story of the origins of modern guerrilla warfare; the exploits of T. E. Lawrence, Emir Feisal, and Bedouin warriors; and the dramatic events of the Arab Revolt of 1916–18. Ten years of research in this prehistoric terrain has revealed sites lost for almost 100 years: vast campsites occupied by railway builders; Ottoman Turkish machine-gun redoubts; Rolls-Royce armoured-car raiding camps; an ephemeral Royal Air Force desert aerodrome; as well as the actual site of the Hallat Ammar railway ambush. Ultimately, this unique and richly illustrated account tells, in intimate detail, the story of a seminal episode of the First World War and the reshaping of the Middle East that followed.
