A team of Jordanian and French archaeologists said in a statement on Tuesday that they have discovered a 9,000-year-old shrine in Jordan’s eastern desert.
The ceremonial complex was discovered beside enormous structures known as ‘desert kites’ in a Neolithic campsite or mass traps that are thought to have been used to capture and slaughter wild gazelles.
Two or more long stone walls converging toward an enclosure make up these traps, which may be found all over the Middle East’s deserts.
‘The site is unusual for a number of reasons, the first of which being its level of preservation’ Jordanian archaeologist Wael Abu-Azziza, the project’s co-director, remarked. ‘It’s 9,000 years old, and it’s practically complete,’ he added.
Two carved standing stones with anthropomorphic figures, one with a representation of the ‘desert kite,’ as well as an altar, hearth, marine shells, and a tiny replica of the gazelle trap, were found within the shrine.
The shrine ‘sheds an entirely new light on the symbolism, creative expression, and spiritual culture of these hitherto unknown Neolithic tribes,’ according to the experts.
The traps were ‘the heart of their cultural, economic, and even symbolic life in this peripheral zone,’ according to the statement, and the site’s closeness to them suggests the residents were specialised hunters.
Archaeologists from Jordan’s Al Hussein Bin Talal University and the French Institute of the Near East were part of the team. During the most recent digging season in 2021, the site was excavated.
Post Your Comments