Visited here today...it takes some effort as you have to park in the desert and walk a mile or so but it's completely unattended and being left to collapse which is a shame, because it's an amazing place in the absolute middle of nowhere.
I drove over the desert right up to it. This was about 7 years ago. The only way to find it was to look on Google Earth then figure out where to drive after leaving the road. Seeing it on the horizon in the desert gave me chills! There was no one else around. Magical experience.
It is speculated that such a fortress was built around a high yielding well of water. There are more documented examples in history. Control the local water supply and you can control the local people and trade with them or kill them. You own the land if you own the water in dry areas.
Wow, it's amazing to see all the pieces together after seeing all the screenshots on twitter. It's an amazing use of Medieval Engineers and a very nicely put together video, I hope to see more of these mini-documentaries :)
I always appreciate more info on what ancient times were like, esp. what archaeological digs reveal. Many sites are sitting idle due to lack of interest and lack of funding. Many people are not interested in the past, they are interested in stories they tell themselves in the present. There is a dearth of info on Edessa, Parthia, and the East as you referred to it in this video.
Do we really know if there was a real well ? Does it remain ? Especially as a cavalry fort this place would have been impossible without a good source of potable water.
Would be so good to find documents buried in clay jars beneath the sands, relating the trials of life on an outpost far from Rome. This must have been built by premier Roman engineers, stone cutters, and masons for walls to be still standing today. Very interesting- thank you for the re-creation.
It would be brilliant to find a stash like that! I agree, clearly there was top-grade talent that went into building it. I do hope that it gets more actively managed and taken care of. There's so much to learn from it.
I would guess that the reason the fort has remained largely intact because it's remote location in the desert prevented it being used as a quarry for building materials. Who would want to transport all the heavy stones across the desert?I would say it is doubtful there was a bathhouse . There was no convenient water source, and there is not remnant of any aqueduct unless there is one underground.
Yeah, its remoteness has definitely helped. However a number of other similar forts to the southwest and to the north haven't survived nearly as well. Most are crumbled to low mounds or flat-out ruined. Maybe earthquake activity? I still hope that a proper archaeological investigation takes place at Qasr Bashir while there's still so much of it to see & learn from! Good points re the bath house; having enough water for the troops and horses was probably difficult enough. Makes it seem even more likely that the troops in this fort rotated in and out from some other, larger, better-supplied main base.
A group called "Endangered Archaeology in the Middle East and North Africa" does some great work in documenting the various sites, but I don't know how much of their information is public on the database. Their website is at eamena.arch.ox.ac.uk/. I have followed people on Twitter who have made pilgrimages from site to site on the Limes Arabicus, and it's sobering how one fort can be half-standing, and the next razed to the ground. Apparently earthquakes did hit the region in 363, 505, and 551, but I don't know how severe. Fascinating part of the world.
one can slowly see from the med to britian it was a huge pain in the A. to maintain the empire. alot of people alwaya raise moral questions of its fall. but very few explore the administrative side of it which was duanting my view is emporors got tired of running it.
I agree quite a bit with that take. Thousands of miles of border to patrol, tens of millions of people to keep content. And eventually no more new lands to conquer, treasure to loot, ways to share out "benefits" to those inside the empire. Just keeping it running must have been an incredible burden.
yeah not as to say there werent moral ethical failures of unspeakable proportions. but my point point is they werent born of character flaws but maybe more of bearucratic failures. could it be these were men who were in such massive adminstrative grid lock that they were lame ducks like our leaders today.
@@raybon7939 They used lead as a food sweetener. I usually have that high on my suspicion list of why Rome fell. Even in today's modern society, you see the generations that were the most exposed to lead as children are now the ones who are most inclined to ignorance and violence.
Great work, I am very happy to see that you are making historically accurate reconstructions. Great Job! I was inspired to do the same project on the city of Caesarea but to focus more on its Crusader era rather than the Roman, perhaps you could do so as well, Or perhaps we could work on it together ? :)
Hey Michael. Thank you much. I've always wanted to expand this idea to something larger like a whole city. I had never thought of Caesarea before, but that would actually be a great one. I know very little about it, either in Roman or Medieval times, but would be a fun place to learn about.
Well actually archaeology there is very complicated because it was inhabited since it was built by Herod and until the later 1940's. during the Early Islamic period it was a Ribat and during the 6th Crusade its Fortifications were improved (those are the ones that we see today) although the Roman and later Byzantine city was much larger than the Crusader fort. I have volunteered at some archaeological excavations there so I could share some information which is permitted to be released of course in accordance with the law. if you are interested I could send you some World\Blueprints of some older reconstruction attempts on Medieval Engineers
Living the dream, sir. Looking into some possible new business ventures, but not sure if they will come to fruition or not. Otherwise just keeping my eyes on the road, you know?
I'll have to go back and check if the archaeologists excavated far enough down to find out. The only real work at the site was done over a century ago, and its reports are in German, In the 1980s an international team did a survey of all the sites in the region, but I don't know how much (if any) new digging they did. It's a good question.
