Cold, wind and sharp footfall

First proper day, cut short by the long delays to the main travelling party yesterday, who only arrived and checked into the hotel at 5 am this morning. We set off in the afternoon after not much sleep to begin this season by visiting one of the new sites for investigation this year.

Overall what we are planning to do this year is to begin by revisiting Batn Al Ghoul where we've found two different encampments, one of which we think was re-used by the military during the war and the other of which was the construction camp not reused.

The third site we are going to look at is Wuheida, which we quickly visited today, and which was originally an Ottoman base that was captured early in 1918 and was then used as a base by the Anglo Arab forces. The terrain is harsh with much sharp and randomly shaped clatter rocks making traversing very difficult and hazardous in places.

This will give us an opportunity to have a look at the archaeological imprint of the Anglo Arab forces, which we have not done before, and to compare that with the archeological imprint of the Ottoman army, which we are now very familiar with.

Wuheida is a very impressive site, the high ground dominates the surrounding landscape, and there are three large trench redoubts on the hill side. In addition to that w have been told by local people that the slope of a nearby hill was actually the place where Faisal had his camp, and we've seen alignments of stones which may well represent an encampment. We therefore intend to carry out an archaeological investigation there as well as on the main defended hilltop.

The weather today was much colder and windier than we have previously experienced here in Jordan during the last three seasons. Today’s photographs are consequently not as good as they might be. Hopefully the forecast is for better conditions in the coming days as this season's adventure unfolds. Please click on the Follow button if you can to register as a follower of this blog - it will increase our traffic and standing in the ranks and spread the word about our project farther and wider.