Ancient Jordan from the Air (ISBN 0953910229)

May Make Your Planned Visit to Jordan Unnecessary:
If you're playing a game of word associations and say "Jordan" and "archaeology" to most people, the snap answer will come: "Petra". Beyond that, Jordan archaeologically is pretty much of a blank, even to those who are otherwise well-traveled and well-read. This book shows just how wrong that is. It covers, with equal diligence, every epoch of Jordan's diverse history: the neolithic ruins in Jordan's northeastern black basaltic desert; the spectacular remains of the Nabataean period; the Roman frontier forts and the elegant provincial town of Jarash; the Umayyad desert castles; the Crusader fortresses of Kerak and Shaubak; and finally the Hajj forts and the Hejaz railway constructed by the Ottomans. There are introductory chapters presenting background information on the land itself, a quick overview of Jordan's history, and the origins and practice of aerial photography. There follow 14 historical chapters on the different periods of Jordan's history, with typically 15-20 images presented in each, along with explanatory text. Roughly half of the images are full-page in this oversized book (8.25" wide by 12" high). There are spectacular photos of memorable sites like the Roman forts Qasr Bshir and Qasr el-Hallabat, the Umayyad desert castle Qasr el-Kharaneh, and Petra's Khazneh tomb, but I was equally intrigued by the images of the desert "kites" - converging stone walls of enormous length used by early man to funnel gazelles into flower-shaped killing zones - and the wheel and jellyfish house foundations that remain from neolithic times. The photographs were taken at heights ranging from as little as 50-100 feet by helicopter, to 2,000 feet or more from fixed-wing aircraft. All are strikingly clear, revealing, and obviously carefully shot, so that the angle of the sun brings out all the surface detail of those sites where only the bare outline of walls remains. All images are in full color -- or, at least, as many colors as this predominantly dry landscape offers. This book will be useful to professional and amateur scholars with a serious interest in the sites described, as well as to anyone who is planning a pleasure trip to Jordan and wants to know whether it would be worth their while to visit the Byzantine village of Umm el-Jimal, the Neolithic urban center of Jawa, or the Abbasid family's home village of Humayma. It should likewise be ordered by libraries that serve a patron base consisting of any of these groups. And if your circumstances are such as to make it unlikely that you'll ever be able to get to Jordan, or to visit such remote sites as Jawa even if you do, then despair not - this book is the next best thing to being there.