Massive 5,000-Year-Old Stone Monument Revealed in Israel

[n2doc]

A lunar-crescent-shaped stone monument that dates back around 5,000 years has been identified in Israel.

Located about 8 miles (13 kilometers) northwest of the Sea of Galilee, the structure is massive — its volume is about 14,000 cubic meters (almost 500,000 cubic feet) and it has a length of about 150 meters (492 feet), making it longer than an American football field. Pottery excavated at the structure indicates the monument dates to between 3050 B.C. and 2650 B.C., meaning it is likely older than the pyramids of Egypt. It was also built before much of Stonehenge was constructed.

Archaeologists previously thought the structure was part of a city wall, but recent work carried out by Ido Wachtel, a doctoral student at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, indicates there is no city beside it and that the structure is a standing monument.

"The proposed interpretation for the site is that it constituted a prominent landmark in its natural landscape, serving to mark possession and to assert authority and rights over natural resources by a local rural or pastoral population," Wachtel wrote in the summary of a presentation given recently at the International Congress on the Archaeology of the Ancient Near East.



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http://www.livescience.com/47835-massive-5-000-year-old-stone-monument-revealed-in-israel.html

[intaglio]

1. On Google Earth it is North of the 866 just West of Shefer

[Beartracks]

2. How is it not overgrown after 5,000 years?

It seems that blowing dirt and, then, plant life would have rendered it invisible from the air. Is the region semi-arid? But I still plenty of trees that might've been able to do the job over that long a span of time...

The article notes it is "preserved to a height of 7 m." I wonder if that means it's been cleared off manually, or that only 7m remains visible above ground level as it's being gradually "re-claimed" by the land over all these years?

Just curious.

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[packman]

3. If it's that "J" type hook in the upper photo

notice the trees growing around it and how the eye completes the oval shape. Bet there's more to it than just simple stones being piled up.

[Judi Lynn]

4. Thank you for introducing this info. Amazing. n/t