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They stretch from Syria to Saudi Arabia , can be seen from the air but not the ground , and are virtually unnamed to the public .
They are the Middle East ’s own version of theNazca Lines — ancient " geolyphs , " or drawing , that cross deserts in southerly Peru — and now , thanks to fresh satellite - chromosome mapping technologies , and an ethereal photography program in Jordan , researcher are light upon more of them than ever before . They number well into the K .
The giant stone structures form wheel shapes with spokes often radiating inside. Here a cluster of wheels in the Azraq Oasis.
relate to by archaeologists as " wheels , " these stone structure have a wide multifariousness of aim , with a uncouth one being a circle with wheel spoke radiate inside . investigator believe that they go steady back to ancientness , at least 2,000 age ago . They are often found on lava fields and range from 82 foot to 230 feet ( 25 meters to 70 meters ) across . [ See gallery of bicycle structure ]
" In Jordan alone we ’ve got stone - built construction that are far more legion than ( the ) Nazca Lines , far more wide in the area that they cover , and far older , " said David Kennedy , a prof of classic and ancient history at the University of Western Australia .
Kennedy ’s fresh research , which will be published in a forthcoming issue of the Journal of Archaeological Science , discover that these wheels shape part of a variety of stone landscape . These include kite ( Harlan Fisk Stone structures used for funnelling and killing animals ) ; pendants ( furrow of stone cairns that run from burials ) ; and rampart , mysterious structures that meander across the landscape painting for up to several hundred foot and have no manifest practical use .
His team ’s studies are part of a long - full term aerial reconnaissance project that is looking at archaeologic sites across Jordan . As of now , Kennedy and his colleagues are puzzled as to what the structures may have been used for or what mean they moderate . [ account ’s Most Overlooked Mysteries ]
Fascinating social organization
Kennedy ’s main area of expertness is in Roman archaeology , but he became mesmerized by these social organisation when , as a student , he learn account of Royal Air Force pilot flying over them in the 1920s on airpost routes across Jordan . " You ca n’t not be becharm by these things , " Kennedy say .
Indeed , in 1927 RAF Flight Lt . Percy Maitland publish an account of the ruins in the journal Antiquity . He reported encountering them over " lava body politic " and enjoin that they , along with the other endocarp structures , are bang to the Bedouin as the " works of the sometime men . "
Kennedy and his squad have been examine the structure usingaerial photography and Google Earth , as the bike are grueling to pick up from the basis , Kennedy sound out .
" Sometimes when you ’re really there on the site you’re able to make out something of a pattern but not very easily , " he say . " Whereas if you go up just a hundred foot or so it , for me , come in sharply into focal point what the soma is . "
The designs must have been clear when they were earlier built . " masses have plausibly walked over them , walked past them , for centuries , millennia , without having any clear idea what the shape was . "
( The team has created anarchive of imagesof the cycle from various internet site in the Middle East . )
What were they used for ?
So far , none of the wheels appear to have been unearth , something that makes dating them , and finding out their aim , more unmanageable . archaeologist studying them in the pre - Google Earth epoch theorise that they could be theremains of sign or cemeteries . Kennedy say that neither of these explanations seems to work out well .
" There seems to be some overarching cultural continuum in this area in which people feel there was a need to progress body structure that were round . "
Some of the wheels are recover in closing off while others are clustered together . At one location , near the Azraq Oasis , C of them can be found clustered into a dozen group . " Some of these compendium around Azraq are really quite remarkable , " Kennedy said .
In Saudi Arabia , Kennedy ’s team has found wheel styles that are quite dissimilar : Some are rectangular and are not wheels at all ; others are round but control two wheel spoke take form a bar often array in the same direction that the Lord’s Day rises and sets in the Middle East .
The ones in Jordan and Syria , on the other paw , have legion wheel spoke and do not seem to be line up with any astronomical phenomenon . " On looking at large numbers of these , over a number of geezerhood , I was n’t struck by any radiation pattern in the way in which the rundle were laid out , " Kennedy said .
cairn terrier are often found associated with the cycle . Sometimes they circulate the perimeter of the wheel , other time they are in among the spokes . In Saudi Arabia some of the cairn terrier aspect , from the air , like they are associate withancient burials .
Dating the wheels is difficult , since they come out to be prehistoric , but could date to as recently as 2,000 years ago . The investigator have notice that the wheels are often found on top of kites , which day of the month as far back as 9,000 days , but never vice versa . " That propose that cycle are more recent than the kite , " Kennedy tell .
Amelia Sparavigna , a physics professor at Politecnico di Torino in Italy , order Live Science in an email that she agrees these structures can be relate to as geoglyphs in the same style as theNazca Linesare . " If we define a ' geoglyph ' as a wide house on the basis of contrived origin , the stone forget me drug are geoglyphs , " Sparavignawrote in her email .
The role of the wheels may also have been alike to the enigmatic drawings in the Nazca desert . [ skill as artistry : A Gallery ]
" If we take , more generally , the stone circles as worship places of ancestors , or place for ritual connected with astronomic outcome or with seasons , they could have the same function of [ the ] geoglyphs of South America , the Nazca Lines for representative . The design is unlike , but the function could be the same , " she write in her email .
Kennedy said that for now the signification of the wheels remains a whodunit . " The question is what was the purpose ? "
