Using aerial aerial photography, archaeologists in Jordan have examined the mysterious ancient wall of the Hatt Shebib, 150 kilometers long. Scientists are perplexed about who built it and why.
Live Science magazine writes that the existence of the wall was first reported in 1948 by Alec Kirkbride, a British diplomat in Jordan, who saw the mysterious multi-kilometer structure from an airplane. An international team of archaeologists recently conducted aerial surveys as part of the APAAME long-term research project to better understand the structure of the wall and the history of settlement in the Middle East.
Mapping
While the locals have long known of the wall's existence, no attempts have been made so far to investigate the structure and details of the ancient structure. Therefore, archaeologists, using aerial photography, have created a detailed map of the wall. The survey showed that the wall bifurcates in some places and branches off in a different direction.
“With the branches and parallel sections, the total length of the wall is about 150 km,” wrote David Kennedy, a professor at the University of Western Australia and Rebecca Banks, a research fellow at the University of Oxford, in an article recently published in the journal Zeitschrift für Orient-Archäologie.
In some places, the wall branches off in a different direction.
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Photo: APAAME / Flickr
Hutt Shebib - the mysterious wall of Jordan
Alec Kirkbride's notes on the ancient wall were published in Antiquity magazine: “As I traveled through the air over the Ma'an area, I noticed a stone wall stretching without any visible purpose across the country. It started twelve kilometers west of the city of Maan and ended at the edge of the cliff."
Kirkbride reported that locals claim the wall was built by a Himyarit prince named Amir Shebib el Tuba'i el Himyari, who ruled Jordan before Islam.
However, some historians believe that the wall was not built by Shebib, but simply used by him in the 10th century as a border to separate the arable land in the west from the barren hills and desert in the east.
The wall, one or one and a half meters high, is believed to have originally been built of boulders. However, the sheer length of the wall suggests that its construction was very difficult.
“Since the wall is made of loose field stones, there is no way to know who exactly built it,” Nabataea.net reports. “Nevertheless, to this day, the wall stands as a witness to the ingenuity of the people of this region, it is one of the least known but most amazing structures in the Middle East.”
Close-up of the Hutt Shebib wall.
Photo: APAAME / Flickr
Ancient structures
Archaeologists have also discovered more than 100 "towers" ranging from 2 to 4 meters in diameter along the Hutt Shebib wall. It is believed that they served as a refuge or as lookout towers.
Remains of one of the towers along the Khatt Shebib wall.
Photo: APAAME / Flickr
In addition to this wall and towers, giant geoglyphs and earthen structures in the form of rings, kites and discs were discovered in the deserts of Jordan.
The giant "wheels", which are about 8,500 years old, are older than the famous Nazca geoglyphs in Peru, about 6,000 years old.
Archaeologists still don't know who built the gigantic earth and stone structures throughout Jordan and what their original purpose was. It is hoped that further research will help uncover this mystery.
Source: Ancient Origins