A three-part TV series on The Nabataeans, presented by historian Bettany Hughes, was aired on UK’s Channel 4.

The final episode of the series looked at the recent discovery of three Roman Camps in south-east Jordan by the Endangered Archaeology (EAMENA) team at the University of Oxford (Fradleyet al. 2023). The Aerial Archaeology in Jordan team led by Dr Robert (Bob) Bewley and Firas Bq’ain had been asked to photograph these camps from the air in 2022.

The following year, the TV company asked if a flight could be arranged to take them over the camps, and perhaps land at one of them. We were thrilled to receive permission, at 8am on the morning of planned trip in November 2023 (with many thanks to the Royal Jordanian Air Force).

Bettany and the film crew joined the flight, and interviewed Bob, and asked what the chances were of finding anything. Bob said “it was a one in million chance of finding anything on the surface; Roman camps are notorious for having very few artefacts.”

Within two minutes of landing Firas had wandered ahead, across the site, and called us over – and this is what was filmed and broadcast – the moment of discovery of many sherds of diagnostic Nabataean pottery – inside a Roman camp. This was a wonderful, unexpected, and genuinely exciting discovery. It raised many questions: How had the pottery survived? Why was it there? Had the Roman soldiers brought it with them, or had they been attacked by Nabataean soldiers?

Next for the EAMENA team will be a field trip for late September into early October 2025, to explore all three camps on the ground. The team will report back once this expedition has been completed.

Watch the series online here in the UK

References:

Michael Fradley, Andrew Wilson, Bill Finlayson and Robert Bewley. 2023.

A lost campaign? New evidence of Roman temporary camps in northern Arabia. Antiquity. Volume 97 , Issue 393 , June 2023, e15. https://doi.org/10.15184/aqy.2023.50.