Archaeologists have discovered a 4,500-year-old network of highways in Saudi Arabia covered with well-preserved ancient tombs.
Scientists from the University of Western Australia have conducted a wide-ranging study over the past year, including aerial surveys by helicopters, ground surveys, excavations and examination of satellite imagery.
The findings of the study were published in the peer-reviewed journal The Holocen in December. Researchers noted that “funeral streets” spanning a large area in the northwestern Arab provinces of Al-Ula and Haiber had not been studied much until recently.
Speaking to CNN, researcher Matthew Dalton said:
The people who live in these areas have known about this place for thousands of years. However, it was not known how widespread they were until they reached satellite imagery.
Dalton said the funeral boulevards he saw from a helicopter stretched hundreds, “even thousands of miles” and that travelers on today’s main roads often followed the same routes.
Dalton added:
You will find that the main roads usually follow the same routes as the boulevards, which tend to be the shortest road between the two places. And in some cases the graves themselves are so dense that you have no choice but to walk to the ancient rotata because you are surrounded by graves.
Most of the graves are either ring or vine. Ring graves are surrounded by a wall of up to two meters high and filled with stones, while the mezzanine tombs have “beautiful tails”.
Using radiocarbon dating, the researchers determined that although the tombs continued to be used until about a thousand years ago, there was an intensive group of specimens from 2600 to 2000 BC. At the time of the tombs and streets, the Egyptians were building pyramids, including the Great Pyramid of Giza, Live Sicence reported.
Speaking to CNN, researcher Melissa Kennedy said:
These tombs are 4,500 years old and still at their original height, which is really unheard of. That’s why I think that’s what specifically separates Saudi Arabia from the rest of the region. The level of protection is truly incredible.
Kennedy believes individual individuals or small groups are buried in the graves, and his research team has observed about 18,000 graves along grave streets. 80 of these graves were used as examples in the research.
Researchers believe the roads were used long before the graves were built, and they are still not entirely sure why the graves were lined up along the way.
Kennedy notes that there were similar traditions associated with land ownership in Greece and Rome later in history. Dalton says the graves may have been built as a sign of ownership.
The team’s next step will be to do more radiocarbon dating and get back on the field before analyzing the data. In this way, researchers can make more discoveries. Dalton says the boulevards could stretch all the way to Yemen.
CNN, Live Science
