Three Roman-era military camps, from almost 2,000 years ago, have been discovered in the Saudi Arabian desert, according to Sky News. The camps were discovered by Oxford University researchers, who traced the camps using Google Earth.
A peer-reviewed study detailing the discovery has been published in the journal Antiquity. The researchers say the discovery suggests as evidence of a Roman campaign across Southeast Jordan into Saudi Arabia during the second century, as per the Sky News report. Researchers claim that these camps were constructed during the Roman takeover of the Jordanian Nabataean Kingdom in 106 AD.
With distances between them ranging from 23 to 27 miles, the camps would almost certainly have been used as temporary accommodation as troops, most likely mounted, made their way across the desert, used for only a few days before the Romans marched on.
Researchers also think that another camp may have been built further west near Bayir, in modern Jordan.
“We are almost certain they were built by the Roman army, given the typical playing card shape of the enclosures with opposing entrances along each side,” said Dr. Michael Fradley.
“The only notable difference between them is that the westernmost camp is significantly larger than the two camps to the east.”
He added: “The level of preservation of the camps is really remarkable, particularly as they may have only been used for a matter of days or weeks.
“They (the Romans) went along a peripheral caravan route linking Bayir and Dumat Al-Jandal (in Saudi Arabia). This suggests a strategy to bypass the more used route down the Wadi Sirhan, adding an element of surprise to the attack. “It is amazing that we can see this moment in time played out at a landscape scale.”
Roman military expert Dr. Mike Bishop said: “These camps are a spectacular new find and an important new insight into Roman campaigning in Arabia. “Roman forts and fortresses show how Rome held a province, but temporary camps reveal how they acquired it in the first place.”
Prof. Andrew Wilson, who co-wrote the report on the three camps in the journal Antiquity, said the greater size of the western camp raised questions about the nature of Rome’s conquest of Nabataea.
“These marching camps — if we are correct in dating them to the early second century — suggest the Roman annexation of the Nabataean Kingdom following the death of the last king, Rabbel II Soter in A.D. 106, was not an entirely straightforward affair, and that Rome moved quickly to secure the kingdom.
