Four Days at Khalasa: Using Aerial Photography and Gis Analysis to reappraise Woolley and Lawrence's Survey of Byzantine Elusa in the Western Negev Desert

Prior to the outbreak of the First World War, C. Leonard Woolley and T. E. Lawrence participated in a survey of the Wilderness of Zin sponsored by the Palestine Exploration Fund (PEF). In this paper, we demonstrate that the contributions of Woolley and Lawrence's survey, as exemplified by their fieldwork at Khalasa, have been underestimated by archaeologists, when not entirely dismissed. Woolley and Lawrence's site plan of Khalasa is reevaluated using aerial photography, archival data, and GIS analysis. This study demonstrates that their map of this Byzantine town is more accurate than subsequent plans of Khalasa.