The 9,000-year-old petroglyphs of “Saharan Kites” are the oldest plants in the world

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Drawings of “desert kites,” stone structures supposedly used for hunting, are found on monoliths in Jordan and Saudi Arabia. look at the pictures

Louisa Costa

4 hours ago

Image: APAAME/Reproduction

Archaeologists have discovered the oldest known architectural plans: two monoliths with precise representations in Jordan and Saudi Arabia, known as the “Desert Kites”. The images were from 7 to 9 thousand years ago, and the results appeared in the study published This month in the magazine Plus one.

Desert kites are massive prehistoric stone constructions, usually made aware of them through aerial or satellite imagery.

Shapes vary, but the basic structure consists of low stone walls (the “tail” of the kite) that converge into an enclosure (the “body” of the kite). In this way, there are also trenches at the edges of the enclosure. Check it out below:

In the past decade, researchers have found more than 6,000 desert kites in the Middle East. but also in Central Asia and North Africa it is less than a hundred meters or several kilometers long.

However, the function of kites is a mystery. But archaeologists suspect they were part of hunting strategies: Groups of animals, such as deer, would follow the stone lines or be chased and directed at the kite’s body. There, hunters kill trapped animals and use the pits to trap those trying to escape.

How did they discover kites in the desert?

Remy Crassard, an archaeologist at the French National Center for Scientific Research, and colleagues have been on field surveys in southeastern Jordan and northern Saudi Arabia. That’s when they found the mysterious carvings made on the gigantic stones.

“When we look at the satellite and aerial photos we took in the field, [percebemos que] It was like drawing real kites in this area.” He said Muhammad Al-Tarawneh is an archaeologist at Al-Hussein Bin Talal University (Jordan) and author of the study The New York Times.

The team then used mathematical models to compare the geometry of the reliefs with 69 kites from different regions. They found that the nearby kites were the most similar to the drawings. They also discovered that the representations were performed on a grand scale.

However, it remains unclear if they were actually plants to help build kites. In short, the inscriptions may also have served as maps for hunters in the area. Or even as a symbolic reminder of kites in the desert, which they might have been An important part of culture of the people who made them.