Saudi Arabia is widely considered a barren desert in the ancient ages, but a new discovery hints that the country was home to various archeological sites in the past which are yet to be discovered. A study conducted with the help of Google Earth has discovered ancient giant stone gates in Saudi Arabia, supposedly the remnants of an ancient civilization.
Structures remain a mystery
With the help of Google Earth imagery, scientists have discovered more than 400 stone gates which were not documented before in the country. David Kennedy, the researcher at the University of Western Australia said that these stone structures will not be visible at the ground level, but once we move up a few hundred feets, these stone gates stand out beautifully lined up. He added that the gates will be visible in satellite images too.
"I refer to them as Gates because when you view them from above they look like a simple field gate lying flat, two upright posts on the sides, connected by one or more long bars," said Kennedy.
According to Kennedy, the structures discovered now remain mysterious, as it is not believed to be a place where people have stayed, nor it is not a cemetery where dead bodies of animals or humans were disposed. Kennedy made it clear that the purpose for which these stone gates were built remains an unanswered mystery. Researchers believe that these structures were built around 2000 to 9000 years ago.
David Kennedy: An archeological expert from Perth
The people who built these structures are supposed to be the ancestors of the modern-day Beduin in the region described as 'The Works of Old Men'. David Kennedy has been studying the stone structures in the Middle East since 1997, and he has made some startling discoveries of stone gates in the area.
Interestingly, David Kennedy has not visited Saudi Arabia at least once in his career. To make this discovery, he used high-resolution images from Google Earth which helped him to discover these mysterious ancient structures scattered across the desert in Saudi Arabia.
David Kennedy is calling these structures 'gates' because their shapes resemble traditional farm gates, and some of them are more than 500 meters long. According to him, these gates are more visible when viewed in Google imagery.
David Kennedy also lauded Google for giving access to high-resolution satellite images to the general public.
"Even 10 years ago if you wanted satellite imagery in high resolution like this, you had to buy it at considerable cost, usually thousands of dollars, and you needed the expertise to manipulate the data that you received. Now anybody can look at Google Earth and see for themselves," said Kennedy, reports ABC.
The findings of Kennedy will be published in the next month issue of Arabian Archaeology and Epigraphy.
