Researchers from the University of Oxford’s School of Archaeology have identified three Roman fortified camps in northern Arabia using satellite images from Google Earth.
The discovery is part of a remote sensing survey published in the journal Antiquity, providing new evidence to suggest an undocumented military campaign across southeast Jordan into Saudi Arabia during Rome’s takeover of the Nabataean Kingdom in AD 106.
The distance between the camps varies from 37 to 44 kilometres from each other, suggesting that they were part of a transit route for cavalry units that may have used camels to cross the harsh terrain.
On the basis of the distance between the camps, there is also a suggestion that another camp may have been located further west at the later Umayyad fort and well station at Bayir.
Dr Michael Fradley from the University of Oxford said: “We are almost certain they were built by the Roman army, given the typical playing card shape of the enclosures with opposing entrances along each side. The only notable difference between them is that the westernmost camp is significantly larger than the two camps to the east.”
According to the researchers, the camps would have been built as temporary defended stations when marching on campaigns. Roman forts and fortresses show how Rome held a province, but temporary camps reveal how they acquired it in the first place.
“The level of preservation of the camps is really remarkable, particularly as they may have only been used for a matter of days or weeks…They went along a peripheral caravan route linking Bayir and Dûmat al-Jandal. This suggests a strategy to bypass the more used route down the Wadi Sirhan, adding an element of surprise to the attack. It is amazing that we can see this moment in time played out at a landscape scale,” added Dr Fradley.
https://doi.org/10.15184/aqy.2023.50
Header Image Credit : University of Oxford
