El-Lejjun Roman Legionary fortress, Jordan
HomepageImage atlasEuropeMiddle EastFar EastN America	A recently declassified CORONA image shows the fortress in plan view.

The Roman Legionary Fortress at El-Lejjun, Jordan (31.21N 35.8E), covers an area of approximately 4.6ha. Excavation has shown that the fortress was originally constructed around AD 300 but occupation extended through to the sixth century. A recently declassified US satellite image acquired on 29 Sep 71 by a KH-4B photo-reconnaissance satellite shows the fortress in plan view. The image covers an area of some 1km by 1km with a pixel size equivalent to approximately 2.5m on the ground. The upstanding walls, corner towers and U-shaped interval towers of the fortress are readily apparent on the image. Within the interior, the ruins of buildings can be seen although not as well as on a conventional vertical air photograph of the site (cf. Kennedy & Riley, 1990). Outside the walls, other features can be identified in the immediate vicinity of the fortress including: the ruins of a square building approximately 100m below the fortress; a circular feature together with several walls some 100m to the upper right of the fortress; several roads/tracks in the vicinity of the fortress; two lines of early-twentieth-century Ottoman barracks extending over approximately 300m in the bottom right corner of the image. References Fowler M.J.F., 1996. Declassified intelligence satellite photographs, AARGnews 13, 30-35. Kennedy D. & Riley D., 1990. Rome's desert frontier from the air, London, Batsford, 131. Acknowledgement Original image posted on the Internet by the US National Reconnaissance Office.

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