![From left to right, Haparsa point; transverse arrowhead; and Badia point. (Photo by Gary Rollefson.)](https://publications.acorjordan.org/wp-content/uploads/rollefson-insights-dec-2023-fig-2-haparsa-pt-tansverse-badia-pt-360x228.jpg)
by Gary Rollefson In the 1920s pilots flying over the Harrat ash-Sham volcanic fields (also known as the Black Desert) were struck by a landscape that was “rugged and desolate” (Maitland 1927: 198), “like a dead fire — nothing but cold ashes” (Rees 1929: 389), whose “odious flat-topped slag heaps” instilled a “sinister foreboding” and…