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Visible Only From Above, Mystifying 'Nazca Lines' Discovered in Mideast

LiveScience ^ | 14 Sept 2011 | Owen Jarus

Posted on by Palter

They stretch from Syria to Saudi Arabia, can be seen from the air but not the ground, and are virtually unknown to the public.

They are the Middle East's own version of the Nazca Lines  ancient "geolyphs," or drawings, that span deserts in southern Peru  and now, thanks to new satellite-mapping technologies, and an aerial photography program in Jordan, researchers are discovering more of them than ever before. They number well into the thousands.

Referred to by archaeologists as "wheels," these stone structures have a wide variety of designs, with a common one being a circle with spokes radiating inside. Researchers believe that they date back to antiquity, at least 2,000 years ago. They are often found on lava fields and range from 82 feet to 230 feet (25 meters to 70 meters) across. [See gallery of wheel structures]

"In Jordan alone we've got stone-built structures that are far more numerous than (the) Nazca Lines, far more extensive in the area that they cover, and far older," said David Kennedy, a professor of classics and ancient history at the University of Western Australia.

Kennedy's new research, which will be published in a forthcoming issue of the Journal of Archaeological Science, reveals that these wheels form part of a variety of stone landscapes. These include kites (stone structures used for funnelling and killing animals); pendants (lines of stone cairns that run from burials); and walls, mysterious structures that meander across the landscape for up to several hundred feet and have no apparent practical use.

His team's studies are part of a long-term aerial reconnaissance project that is looking at archaeological sites across Jordan.



(Excerpt) Read more at livescience.com ...

TOPICS:

History

KEYWORDS:

arabia

archaeoastronomy

epigraphyandlanguage

geoglyphs

godsgravesglyphs

megaliths

middleeast

nazca

nazcalines

orbitalarchaeology

satellitearchaeology

saudiarabia

stonecircles

The giant stone structures form wheel shapes with spokes often radiating inside. Here a cluster of wheels in the Azraq Oasis.

CREDIT: David D. Boyer APAAME_20080925_DDB-0237



To: SunkenCiv

Michelin, ping.



by 2 posted onby Palter (Even liberals need jobs.)

To: Palter

Clan/Family compounds in a tribal village.



To: Palter

Farrakhan’s “Mother Wheel”...



To: Palter

Is the opposite of the Mideast the Midwest? If there is a Northwestern College and a Northwestern University, is there a Eastnortheastern or Southsouthwestern Community College somewhere?



To: null and void

Clan/Family compounds in a tribal village. Agreed.



by 6 posted onby Moonman62 (The US has become a government with a country, rather than a country with a government.)

To: Palter

Could be the remnants of ancient homesteads. A circle encloses the maximum area within a given length of wall,A compound inside the outer wall would be divided into animal pens,storage,human shelter,garden?,privy,and whatever else might be needed.Bigger groups of people would have the time (and need) to wall (make secure) bigger areas. You don’t need space aliens to explain every bit of ancient history.



by 7 posted onby hoosierham (Waddaya mean Freedom isn't free ?;will you take a credit card?)

To: Palter

They look like livestock pens...



by 8 posted onby 2banana (My common ground with terrorists - they want to die for islam and we want to kill them)

To: hoosierham

Wow! Three other posters beat me to the same conclusion;I think we have a consensus.



by 9 posted onby hoosierham (Waddaya mean Freedom isn't free ?;will you take a credit card?)

To: hoosierham

Yeah, but space aliens is more entertaining...



To: Palter

This is just more “Chariot of the Gods” stuff - proof that the ancients were visited by aliens driving around in vehicles with spoke-wheels!!



To: Palter

I wonder what they’ll look like after being baked under a mushroom cloud...



by 12 posted onby rottndog (Be Prepared for what's coming AFTER America....)

To: Palter

Not the same thing as Nazca lines.. at all..



by 13 posted onby hosepipe (This propaganda has been edited to include some fully orbed hyperbole...)

To: Palter

Well duh! How do you think aliens ordered pizzas?



To: Palter

Sheep pens



by 15 posted onby HereInTheHeartland (I love how the FR spellchecker doesn't recognize the word "Obama")

To: hosepipe

You never see ALL of the Nazca images on tv...some are X-rated! Mike



by 16 posted onby MichaelP (The ultimate result of shielding men from the effects of folly is to fill the world with fools ~HS)

To: Palter; SunkenCiv

and walls, mysterious structures that meander across the landscape for up to several hundred feet and have no apparent practical use. Except to protect caravans from those ginormous sandstorms that debraded the flesh from the bones.



To: Palter

Obviously landing sites for ancient craft, either that or giant desert bacteria ...



To: Palter

To: bvw

Is the opposite of the Mideast the Midwest? No, the opposite of the mideast is the extremewest.



by 20 posted onby BillGunn (Bill Gunn for Congress district one rep. Massachusetts)

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