

A team of Jordanian and French archaeologists declared on Tuesday, Feb. 22, that they had found a roughly 9,000-year-old shrine at a remote Neolithic site in Jordan’s eastern desert.
The ritual complex was found in a Neolithic campsite near large structures known as “desert kites,” or mass traps that are believed to have been used to corral wild gazelles for slaughter.
Such traps consist of two or more long stone walls converging toward an enclosure and are found scattered across the deserts of the Middle East.
“The site is unique, first because of its preservation state,” said Jordanian archaeologist Wael Abu-Azziza, co-director of the project. “It’s 9,000 years old and everything was almost intact.”
Within the shrine were two carved standing stones bearing anthropomorphic figures, one accompanied by a representation of the “desert kite,” as well as an altar, hearth, marine shells, and miniature model of the gazelle trap.
The researchers said in a statement that the shrine “sheds an entirely new light on the symbolism, artistic expression as well as the spiritual culture of these hitherto unknown Neolithic populations.”
The proximity of the site to the traps suggests the inhabitants were specialized hunters and that the traps were “the center of their cultural, economic, and even symbolic life in this marginal zone,” the statement said.
The team included archaeologists from Jordan’s Al Hussein Bin Talal University and the French Institute of the Near East. The site was excavated during the most recent digging season in 2021.
TYT Newsroom
more recommended stories
Route of the Mayan Train in Yucatan: stations and stops near Merida
Little by little the route of.
Sea Turtles are expected to make landfall in Progreso this month
Two dead dolphins and a turtle.
Mauricio Vila inaugurates assembly plant with a $4 million US dollars investment, the first in Yucatan
The first plant in Yucatan of.
The fifth wave of Covid-19 decreasing in Yucatan
In Yucatan, the fifth wave of.
El Salvador opens a new 40,000-person prison
Authorities in El Salvador have opened.
Merida Country Club and other neighborhoods will be affected by electricity service outages
In order to provide maintenance to.
Yucatan is at the forefront in Cybersecurity
Yucatan is the first entity to.
TFJA confirmed that Grupo Elektra, owned by Salinas Pliego, owes 1.4 billion pesos in taxes
On Thursday, February 2nd, the Federal.
“Wired and reclaimed” sustainable art at Soho Galleries
The Yucatan Times was present at.
No tourists are allowed to climb the pyramid of Chichen Itzá… but dogs are OK (Watch Video)
A video spread through Twitter allows.
Leave a Comment