Big stone circles found in Jordan, some dating back thousands of years, are baffling archaeologists as they try to figure out whether the structures are connected and what they could have been used for.
Archaeologists have now taken 11 aerial photographs of what they are calling the "Big Circle" structures in Jordan, most of which are roughly
1,312 feet in diameter, according to LiveScience.com.
Researcher David Kennedy told LiveScience that the similarities alone make him believe there is a connection between the circles, saying that the sizes are "too close to be a coincidence." An analysis of photographs and artifacts found in and around the circles suggests that they date back at least 2,000 years, but they may be a lot older.
British commander Lionel Rees found the first three circles in Jordan in the 1920s while flying over the area in some of the earliest archaeological
aerial photographs, The Washington Post reported.
"All three are almost exact circles, are different from anything else in the country," Rees recorded in the archaeological journal Antiquity at the time, The Post noted.
Kennedy told LiveScience.com, though, that the circles have pretty much remained a mystery. No one really knows why they were built, who built them, what they could have been used for, or why they were eventually abandoned.
"I can't even pretend to know what the answers are," he said.
While finding 11 complete and one partial circle in Jordan, Kennedy told The Post he found another circle in Syria and two more in southeastern Turkey, all similar in their structure.
"In the case of those circles that (are) near-precise circles, it would have required at least one person as 'architect,'" Kennedy told LiveScience.com, noting that an architect would have had tied a long rope to a post and walked in a circle, marking the ground as he or she moved around. "That would also explain the glitches (in the circles) where the land was uneven."
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