We reveal an ambitious archaeological project in Southern Jordan, which is providing startling new evidence. The Great Arab Revolt Project (GARP) is one of the only archaeological investigations of a battlefield on this scale anywhere in the world. While the archaeological trace of Lawrence and the Bedouin guerrilla fighters is by its very nature incredibly scarce, the military structures of their opponents, the Ottoman Turks, are all too evident. The structures and scars from this battle are visible across the desert, in particular around the city of Ma’an, a key Hejaz station. On-the-ground analysis of surviving defences begins to reveal the style of warfare played out in this military arena.
Issam Mousa - Professor of Mass Communication at the Middle East University for Graduate Studies
Issam Mousa has been a Professor of Mass Communication at the Middle East University for Graduate Studies, Jordan's only university with an MA course in mass communication and journalism, since September 2005. He previously worked for Yarmouk University, and holds a Ph.D. in Communication from the University of Washington in Seattle. His research interests include Arab and Jordanian Media; the Arab image in the United States; the Arabs in the First Communication Revolution; and development communication. His Father, Suleiman Mousa, was a Jordanian author and historian who wrote many books of which most prominent are "The Biography of Sharif Hussein Bin Ali ", "The Great Arab Revolt", "History of Jordan in the 20th century", and was the first and only Arab author to write about Lawrence of Arabia and show the Arab perspective.
Jeremy Wilson - Authorised biographer of T. E. Lawrence
In 1975, A. W. Lawrence appointed Wilson to be the authorised biographer of T. E. Lawrence. Wilson spent years of research, accumulating considerably more information about Lawrence than had been published before. He was consultant to the National Portrait Gallery for their Lawrence of Arabia Centenary Exhibition (1988-1989). He also compiled the exhibition catalogue. He was one of the two historical advisers in 2005-2006 to the Imperial War Museum for the exhibition "T. E. Lawrence, the life, the legend".
Neil Faulkner - Lecturer, Editor, Writer, Excavator, and occasional broadcaster
Neil Faulkner was brought up in the Weald and educated at The Skinners’ School, Tunbridge Wells, King’s College, Cambridge, and the Institute of Archaeology, University College London (UCL). He works as a freelance lecturer, editor, writer, excavator, and occasional broadcaster. He has lectured in archaeology, ancient history, and classical civilisation at many universities, adult education colleges, and local societies, as well as on cultural tours of archaeological sites in the Mediterranean. He is Features Editor of the popular magazine Current Archaeology, and also Honorary Research Fellow at Bristol University, Honorary Lecturer at UCL, and a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries of London.
Nicholas Saunders - Co-director of the Great Arab Revolt Project
Nicholas Saunders is co-director of the Great Arab Revolt Project. He studied archaeology at Sheffield and Southampton Universities and social anthropology at Queens’ College, Cambridge. He is a leading authority on the material culture anthropology of the First World War and 20th-century ‘Conflict Archaeology’, and among his books on this subject are Trench Art (Berg, 2003), Matters of Conflict (Routledge, 2004), Killing Time (Sutton, 2007) and Contested Objects (Routledge 2007). He has been British Academy Senior Research Fellow and then Reader in Material Culture at University College London. Nick has been involved with museum exhibitions of First World War material culture in the United Kingdom, France, Germany, the USA, and Hungary, and he currently has a five-year exhibition on First World War trench art at the ‘In Flanders Fields Museum’ in Ypres, Belgium.
T.E Lawrence
Lieutenant Colonel Thomas Edward Lawrence, CB, DSO known professionally as T. E. Lawrence, was a British Army officer renowned especially for his liaison role during the Arab Revolt against Ottoman Turkish rule of 1916–18.
Faisal
Faisal bin Hussein bin Ali al-Hashemi was for a short time King of the Arab Kingdom of Syria or Greater Syria in 1920, and was King of the Kingdom of Iraq (today Iraq) from 23 August 1921 to 1933
Auda
Auda ban Harb al-Abo Seed al-Mazro al-Tamame abu Tayi,was the leader (shaikh) of a section of the Howeitat or Huwaytat tribe of Bedouin Arabs at the time of the Great Arab Revolt during the First World War.
Lawrence had an unsettling childhood which contributed to his adventurous attitude. His parents never stayed in one place for long and each of their five sons were born in a different country.
In 1914 Lawrence worked for British intelligence and was sent on an assignment to explore northern Sinai; travelling undercover as part of a geographic survey team.
Lawrence loved exploring the Middle East. He once walked 1100 miles in three months across mountains and deserts in order to get an insight into Arab life. On his first trip to Syria as a student, Lawrence was beaten so badly he nearly died. He never told his mother.
T.E.Lawrence was vegetarian and also abstained from tobacco and alcohol.
Lawrence’s most famous written work, The Seven Pillars of Wisdom, published in 1926, is still recommended to American troops serving in Iraq and Afghanistan today.
Lawrence received several awards and honors such as the ‘Companion of the Order of the Bath’ the ‘Distinguished Service Order’ and the French 'Légion d'Honneur'. However, in October 1918 he refused to be made a ‘Knight Commander of the British Empire’.
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