Posted on 10/22/2017 11:16:29 AM PDT by MtnClimber
Google Earth reveals hundreds of geoglyphs in the desert, possibly 9,000 years old.
For almost a century, aerial photographers have been documenting mysterious, millennia-old structures built from low walls of stone in the rocky lava fields, known as harrat, in Syria, Jordan, and Saudi Arabia. This desert region, blistered with volcanic mounds, is nearly devoid of life. But seen from above, the barren ground is covered with massive, interlocking geoglyphs that take the form of abstract arrow shapes called "kites" and rough rectangles called "gates."
University of Western Australia archaeologist David Kennedy became interested in the structures after discovering how easy they were to track using Google Earth. He'd seen some of the kites while doing fieldwork in Jordan and realized that the structures continued into Saudi Arabia. "We would have loved to fly across into Saudi Arabia to take images. But you never get the permission,” he told The New York Times. “And then along comes Google Earth.” Now Kennedy has a paper about the rectangular gate structures in a forthcoming issue of Arabian Archaeology and Epigraphy.
Since 2004, a group of Saudi amateur archaeologists calling themselves The Desert Team (Fariq Al Sahra) has been exploring the geoglyph sites on the ground. Neurologist Abdullah Al-Saeed, part of The Desert Team, told the Times that it wasn't until 2008 that he looked at the sites using Google Earth and grasped the significance of what they had discovered.
(Excerpt) Read more at arstechnica.com ...
Very interesting Google Earth view of the site.
They look like livestock pens...
Ancient Hugelkulter?
Part of the Silk Road caravan route?
or
Is it part of an intra-Arabian peninsula trading route?
We may be living in “Earth” 2.0.
Imagine our Planet full of people and the progression of knowledge not so different from what we see today.
An advanced/equal society that succumbed to the Earth itself rising up and folding over, burying virtually all traces of its former inhabitants.
That’s what I thought. Another article I read showed a 3D angle where all the “pens” are radiating out of the center of a volcanic cone on steep slopes.
Maybe the critters were driven to the center of the cone then auctioned off into the holding pens? (or divided up based on whatever tribal logic of the time).
Nothing New Under the Aten!
Didn’t the Lord give this land to Joshua and the Hebrews?
The fact that these areas are barren now does not mean they always were. The Sahara was green and had lakes at 4 or 5 thousand years ago. They also state that there has been volcanic activity, so these are partly covered in ash.
Pre Roman Britain fields were long. It was hard to turn their plows around so they went straight as far as they could. As they turned up rocks they moved them to the edge of the fields. Over time they built up walls. Perhaps its ancient farmers. Or, they could be holding pens for herd animals, a Sheep fold.
The kite figure looks like its something you drive animals into to corral them.
They need to do some digging around for animal bones or petrified sheep dip.
They are only like 6-12 inches high.
This is lava!
OK, uh, Scarab beetle pens, then. :)
It’s possible artifacts of prior civilizations may
be encapsulated within the subducted plates that
scientists have found deep within the earth.
No way to tell as yet.
These used to be corrals for keeping livestock penned up at night, when the desert was grassland (not that long ago, as some have pointed out).
Over the years, most of the stone was stolen to make other structures, except for the lowest layers that were underground at that time. Now it's desert and the topsoil has blown away, leaving a low wall.
The boundaries in the Book of Joshua are quite a bit different from those in Genesis 15. As far as I know, the Sages of Israel have never claimed the Holy Land extended to the boundaries of Genesis 15. And then there are also the boundaries of Ezekiel 47.
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