Conflict on Jebel Sherra

Abstract

This chapter explores the town of Ma’an, the largest and most sophisticated conflict landscape of the Arab Revolt in the Great Arab Revolt Project (GARP) study area. It is the site of the largest set-piece battle of the campaign east of the Jordan River, where 4,000 Ottoman troops faced 3,000 Arabs in a fierce five-day struggle. In this respect, it was an anomaly—a true battle in an otherwise mainly guerrilla campaign. Ma’an Station and its hinterland was an archaeological challenge as well. The station itself was surrounded by extensive Turkish earthwork defences—crenelated trench systems interspersed with karakoll hilltop defences—sitting within what is still an active training ground for the Jordanian Army. However, the evidence was mounting that the defence of the railway was a very late affair, that it could be dated to within a few months, and that it had an instructive relationship with the earlier defences of the construction era.