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Many sites can be poorly preserved. This small Byzantine town at Khirbet Khaw in northern Jordan was difficult to interpret at ground level when visited by travellers a century ago and has been "lost" within the perimeter of a military base for the last half century. The air photograph of 1953, however, makes it far more readily and immediately intelligible, depicting the fort in the top right and the town which grew up around it on the west and south (Kennedy 2001). In this instance the site has been well-protected as the next photo shows but at ground-level is a baffling ruined field pock-marked by the entrances to underground tombs.

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Many more sites are far more difficult to see at ground level. This view of a site on the Wadi el-Ajib in northern Jordan shows a settlement as it appeared in 1953. The rectangular structure is a modern reconstruction preserving the outline of an ancient farm. To the right can be seen the "ghost" outlines of a series of cells for a substantial curvilinear structure. Sites such as these are quite common and frequently include a Roman phase. Many have now been wholly or partly obliterated by recent development and the photograph is the sole record of their form. By April 2007 agriculture had encroached and none of this survived.