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Chris

Stone structures found in Saudi Arabia believed to be older than the pyramids of Egypt

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Thousands of monumental structures built from walls of rock in Saudi Arabia are older than Egypt's pyramids and the ancient stone circles of Britain, researchers say – making them perhaps the earliest ritual landscape ever identified.

A study published Thursday in the journal Antiquity shows that the mysterious structures dotted around the desert in northwestern Saudi Arabia – called "mustatils" from the Arabic word for "rectangle" – are about 7,000 years old. That’s much older than expected, and about 2,000 years older than either Stonehenge in England or the oldest Egyptian pyramid.

“We think of them as a monumental landscape,” said Melissa Kennedy, an archaeologist at the University of Western Australia in Perth and an author of the study. “We are talking about over 1,000 mustatils. These things are found over 200,000 square kilometers [77,000 square miles], and they’re all very similar in shape ... so perhaps it’s the same ritual belief or understanding.”

“There must have been a great level of communication over a very big area, because how they were constructed was communicated to people,” lead author Hugh Thomas, an archaeologist at the same university, said.

The research is funded by the Royal Commission for AlUla, which has been established by the government of Saudi Arabia to preserve the heritage of the AlUla region in the northwest of the country, where many mustatils are found. 

Some of the ancient structures are more than 1,500 feet long, but comparatively narrow, and they’re often clustered together. They’re usually built on bedrock, often on rocky outcrops above the desert, but also in mountains and in relatively low-lying areas. 

 

More of the article and more photos in the link. 

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/amp/rcna805

210430-arabian-mustatils-3-ew-957a-898e5

210430-arabian-mustatils-4-ew-957a-2bf66

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3 hours ago, Cha Eunwoo said:

It's just a bunch of rocks stacked together? um2 Could have been made by anyone in the present. 

This is like someone 3000 years in the future admiring a stickman drawing from today. nicki5

I’m inclined to agree with you.

And not necessarily because I think someone just cobbled the shit together. I distrust anything that comes out of Saudi Arabia, it’s a rule of thumb.

If it’s real, it’s not exactly earth shattering, but it could lead to something earth shattering. At least for historians dead2

But, once again, I wouldn’t trust anything from Saudi Arabia with impunity.

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3 hours ago, Cha Eunwoo said:

It's just a bunch of rocks stacked together? um2 Could have been made by anyone in the present. 

This is like someone 3000 years in the future admiring a stickman drawing from today. nicki5

They'd have to test the ages of those rocks to be sure. That being said, there is some truth to what you're saying

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4 hours ago, Cha Eunwoo said:

It's just a bunch of rocks stacked together? um2 Could have been made by anyone in the present. 

This is like someone 3000 years in the future admiring a stickman drawing from today. nicki5

210430-arabian-mustatils-3-ew-957a-898e53_54f0ab1f1d593877b0c5a51101c79b5ffb5e0720.fit-2000w.jpg    210430-arabian-mustatils-4-ew-957a-2bf66f_784bc7d1be4eb5ab7cb4ecd4167013bdc0962d60.fit-1000w.jpg

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On 5/1/2021 at 7:03 AM, Cha Eunwoo said:

It's just a bunch of rocks stacked together? um2 Could have been made by anyone in the present. 

This is like someone 3000 years in the future admiring a stickman drawing from today. nicki5

That's my fault. I didn't post the other pictures that show what it actually was referring to dead1 

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