Massive stone structures in Saudi Arabia may be some of oldest monuments in the world

[Judi Lynn]

4. More photos. This article says they could be more than 9,000 yrs. old.

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Professor David Kennedy of the University of Oxford just discovered hundreds of mysterious structures near ancient lava domes in Saudi Arabia. Using Google Earth, Kennedy found approximately 400 stone walls that are believed to be more than 9,000 years old. Because the structures appear similar to others found in the Middle East, they have been dubbed “gates”




More:
https://inhabitat.com/hundreds-of-mysterious-stone-structures-discovered-near-ancient-volcanoes-in-saudi-arabia/

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Older article:

Aerial Images May Unlock Enigma of Ancient Stone Structures in Saudi Arabia
By David Kennedy November 12, 2017



Aerial photographs and ground inspection of the keyhole pendants in Saudi Arabia reveal more details of the enigmatic structures.
(Image: © Courtesy APAAME, APAAME_20171027_DLK-0891)


Hundreds of thousands of stone structures that date back thousands of years and dot the deserts and plains of the Middle East and North Africa are, in many cases, so large that only a bird's-eye view can reveal their intricate archaeological secrets: gorgeous and mysterious geometric shapes resembling a range of objects, from field gates, to kites, to pendants, to wheels.

These are the "Works of the Old Men," according to the Bedouin when first questioned in the 1920s. And although ancient peoples evidently had their reasons for constructing these stone structures, their purpose has remained relatively opaque to archaeologists today.

I have been studying these Works for two decades, and their inaccessibility has made these sites' purposes even more elusive. That's where satellite imagery (used by Google Earth) and aerial reconnaissance, which involves much lower-flying aircraft) come in.

In the past few weeks, a huge opportunity opened up in this field after Live Science published an article about my research, sparking a deluge of international media coverage. Ultimately, I was invited to visit the country that has been least open to any form of aerial surveys, or even to archival aerial images: Saudi Arabia. Last month, they lifted this veil of sorts and allowed me to fly over the country's vast array of archaeological sites for the first time. [See Spectacular Images of the Stone Structures of Saudi Arabia]

More:
https://www.livescience.com/60918-aerial-images-reveal-saudi-arabia-stone-structures.html