Mysterious Symbols in Kazakhstan: How Old Are They, Really? by Owen Jarus [View all]

[L. Coyote]

Last edited Fri Nov 6, 2015, 12:43 PM - Edit history (1)

Good to see a great science writer following up on this new flurry of stories.

Mysterious Symbols in Kazakhstan: How Old Are They, Really?
by Owen Jarus, Live Science Contributor | November 05, 2015 09:22am ET

Sprawling earthen swastika designs, crosses and rings that cover part of Kazakhstan are becoming a little less mysterious: Archaeologists have found and investigated 60 of these symbols, called geoglyphs, and determined when they were created and what their potential function might have been.

The Kazakhstan geoglyphs, described at an archaeology conference in Istanbul and reported by Live Science last year, range in size from 90 to 400 meters (295 to 1,312 feet) across — longer than a commercial aircraft.

The earthen works take on various geometric shapes, including squares, crosses, rings and a swastika. In ancient times, the swastika was a common design with no political undertones. Though the swastika was created from timber, most of the geoglyphs were shaped from earth. [See Google Earth Images of the Sprawling Kazakhstan Geoglyphs]

Using a dating technique called optically stimulated luminescence (OSL), the archaeologists recently found that the structures were constructed starting around 2,800 years ago.

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Ancient Monument Placemarks