Not only streets, palaces and aerial panoramas, but also authentic archaeological finds, such as the defensive walls of Roman camps with their typical conformation…
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Not only streets, palaces and aerial panoramas, but also authentic archaeological finds such as the defensive walls of Roman camps with their typical orthogonal geometric conformation. The “bionic” eye of Google Earth it has indeed intercepted an unknown legacy of two thousand years. Use of satellite imagery It was possible to reveal Ben’s presence three Roman camps millennial hidden under the stratigraphic sands of southern Jordanian desert. What did you do there? Why were they built there? They were probably functional for one Military mission in the 2nd century AD. And here comes the beauty of discovery. Indeed the backstory. A story within a story. In fact, there is no trace of a Roman military invasion of this region in historical sources. For this reason archaeologists assume that the fields could have been part of a Secret attack planned on the Nabatean city of Dumat al-Jandal.
THE IMPORTANCE OF DISCOVERY
Hundreds of Roman structures have been identified in Europe that can be associated with military settlements. Today, however, only a handful remain in the Middle East. For this reason, the presence of three intact camps in this area is a very rare fact. The sites each have the classic “playing card” shape of temporary Roman military camps. The defensive walls were built by piling up boulders and in front of each entrance there were small fortifications called “tituli”. Basically, Google Earth has only managed to photograph the geometric outlines of the fields, partly because excavations to uncover any remains of buildings or high walls have not yet begun. The news, published in a study published in the scientific journal Antiquityu, was reported by the LiveScience website. A discovery that has to deal with history and even rewrite it.
THE SECRET MISSION
As LiveScience explains, in the 2nd century, southern Jordan was controlled by the kingdom of the Nabataeans, a people apparently allied to the Roman Empire. The layout of the newly discovered camps appears to follow a strategic route (unusual, different from the roads normally traveled because the usual route to the city was north of Azraq) towards the Nabataean city of Dumat al-Jandal, now located in Arabic Arabic . The team of scientists led by Michael Fradley, a landscape archaeologist at the University of Oxford, put forward this hypothesis «The camps were part of a secret Roman mission to attack from an unexpected direction. Roman records indicate that after the death of its king in AD 106, the Nabatean kingdom passed peacefully under Roman rule during the reign of Trajan.. But the new evidence suggests the transition to Roman rule may have been more violent than previously thought. Anything but peaceful.
HOW DID THE DISCOVERY HAPPEN?
It all started a year ago when Fradley used Google Earth to examine photos of the desert near Jordan’s southern border with Saudi Arabia as part of the Endangered Archeology in the Middle East and North Africa project, in which researchers make use of satellite imagery. In these stadiums, Fradley recognized the classic “playing card” shape of a Roman camp. Not only one. The real surprise was something else: “Less than 24 hours later, he had identified two more that led in a direct line from an oasis to Bayir about southeast in the desert.”
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