APAAME Research on Live Science

An article featuring our research into the mysterious stone structures, known as 'gates', has been posted on the Live Science website. Please follow this link to view the article: https://www.livescience.com/60698-mysterious-stone-structures-discovered-saudi-arabia.html

"Almost 400 mysterious stone structures dating back thousands of years have been discovered in Saudi Arabia, with a few of these wall-like formations draping across old lava domes, archaeologists report."

A paper on these structures by David Kennedy is set to be published in the November issue of Arabian Archaeology and Epigraphy.

Publications: Remote Sensing and ‘Big Circles’ A New Type of Prehistoric Site in Jordan and Syria

The most recent annual edition of the periodical Zeitschrift für Orient-Archäologie (ZOrA) features a research article by Professor David Kennedy on a series of 'Big Circle' stone structures.

APAAME_20081008_DLK-0287 Photographer: David Kennedy.

Abstract from the article:
Circular stone structures are common throughout the Middle East and can date to almost any period. To date at least 12 examples have been recorded in Jordan but now a single further example near Homs in Syria has been published. The latter is one of the few to have been examined in some detail on the ground; most are known only from brief reports although all the Jordanian examples may be viewed on the Flickr site of the Aerial Photographic Archive for Archaeology in the Middle East (APAAME). Dating is problematic in every case, though they seem certainly to be pre-Roman.

David Kennedy (2013) Remote Sensing and ‘Big Circles’: A New Type of Prehistoric Site in Jordan and Syria, Zeitschrift für Orient-Archäologie 6: 44-63.

Guest blog: Gary Rollefson and the Eastern Desert of Jordan

Research in the Eastern Desert of Jordan

2011 and 2012 

Prof. Garry Rollefson, Whitman College

Man made structures in the vicinity of Wisad Pools. Structure W-66 indicated. APAAME_20080909_DLK-0361. Photographer: David L Kennedy. Click to enlarge.

In 2007, when Alex Wasse and I revisited Wisad Pools in Jordan’s panhandle, we were stunned at the density of man-made structures at what appeared to be an enormous necropolis situated around a number of natural pools in a short wadi that collected rainfall during the rainy season. In the same summer we visited M-4 (“Maitland’s Mesa”) in the Wadi al-Qattafi, where there were clear pastoral structures on the top of this mesa as well as a tower tomb and a string of more than 50 rectilinear chambers extending from it along the southern edge of the mesa. In addition, there were numerous structures along the southern, western, and northern slopes, several of which showed striking parallels with nawamis tombs that had been reported from the Sinai and Yemen deserts. Since these two sites are currently characterized by hyperarid climatic condition, conventional wisdom and our own inclinations considered all of the basalt structures to be ritual in nature due to the effort necessary to construct them and to the ephemeral nature of most pastoral architecture. In our mind, these structures were permanent monuments to the dead, whether tumuli or cenotaphs. This interpretation proved to be incorrect, and although there are clear ritual structures at Wadi al-Qattafi and at Wisad Pools, many of the permanent structures are, in fact, domestic dwellings that imply some degree of permanence in occupation.

Big Circles

Image: Google Earth. Please click to enlarge.

Philip and Bradbury (2010) published a large nearly perfect circular enclosure in their survey of the region surrounding Homs in Syria. In the satellite imagery dated to April 2003 in Google Earth its full circuit is almost completely visible and can be measured at over 340m in diameter. The survey dated the site from associated material evidence to the 4th or early 3rd millennia BC. The most recent imagery in August 2010 shows that all trace of the site has been obliterated by the increasing use of the region for agriculture.

Philip and Bradbury note no other circles of similar size in Syria, or further afield in Jordan – their largest counterparts are c. 100 m. However, several – perhaps as many as 12, are known, all of them in Jordan, and a few have been published.

All but one of these unusual sites have been found from aerial photographs or satellite imagery. The characteristic feature of these Big Circles is their size – apart from one that is c. 220-250m in diameter, all of the others are in the range of c. 350-450m with several almost exactly 400m. Most are near-perfect circles, they have low encircling walls, no clear evidence for any original break in the circuit and no certain evidence of any internal structures. The slender evidence tends to point – as with the Syrian example, to a prehistoric date

We are currently mapping, describing and analyzing these sites as an aerial archaeological research project. If you've got any ideas, please feel free to drop us a comment!

-D.L. Kennedy, R.E. Banks

This blog entry was derived from an in progress publication by D.L. Kennedy 'Big Circles'. For further information please consult: Philip, G. and Bradbury, J. (2010) 'Pre-Classical activity in the basalt landscape of the Homs Region, Syria', Levant, 42.2: 136-169.