Amman, Jordan: A team of Jordanian and French archaeologists said on Tuesday that they have found a temple about 9,000 years old at a remote Neolithic site. JordanEastern Desert.
The ritual complex was found in a Neolithic campsite near large structures known as “desert kites” or massive nets that are believed to have been used to corral wild gazelles for slaughter.
This type of trap consists of two or more long stone walls that meet towards an enclosure and are found scattered in the desert Middle East,
“The site is unique, first of all because of its conservation status,” said Jordanian archaeologist Wael Abu-Aziza, co-director of the project. “It’s 9,000 years old and everything was almost intact.”
Inside the temple were two carved standing stones with anthropomorphic figures, one representing a “desert kite”, as well as an altar, hearth, sea shells and miniature models of gazelle nets.
The temple “sheds a whole new light on the symbolism, artistic expression as well as the spiritual culture of a hitherto unknown Neolithic population,” the researchers said in a statement.
The site’s proximity to the traps suggests that the inhabitants were specialized hunters and that the traps were “the center of their cultural, economic and even symbolic life in this frontier region,” the statement said.
The team included archaeologists from Jordan. Al Hussein bin Talal University And this French Institute of the Near East, The site was excavated during the most recent excavation season in 2021.
The ritual complex was found in a Neolithic campsite near large structures known as “desert kites” or massive nets that are believed to have been used to corral wild gazelles for slaughter.
This type of trap consists of two or more long stone walls that meet towards an enclosure and are found scattered in the desert Middle East,
“The site is unique, first of all because of its conservation status,” said Jordanian archaeologist Wael Abu-Aziza, co-director of the project. “It’s 9,000 years old and everything was almost intact.”
Inside the temple were two carved standing stones with anthropomorphic figures, one representing a “desert kite”, as well as an altar, hearth, sea shells and miniature models of gazelle nets.
The temple “sheds a whole new light on the symbolism, artistic expression as well as the spiritual culture of a hitherto unknown Neolithic population,” the researchers said in a statement.
The site’s proximity to the traps suggests that the inhabitants were specialized hunters and that the traps were “the center of their cultural, economic and even symbolic life in this frontier region,” the statement said.
The team included archaeologists from Jordan. Al Hussein bin Talal University And this French Institute of the Near East, The site was excavated during the most recent excavation season in 2021.
,