{"id":279287,"date":"2020-08-26T18:34:04","date_gmt":"2020-08-26T21:34:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/anba.com.br\/?p=279287"},"modified":"2020-08-26T18:34:04","modified_gmt":"2020-08-26T21:34:04","slug":"research-reveals-7000-year-old-monuments-in-saudi-arabia","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/anba.com.br\/en\/research-reveals-7000-year-old-monuments-in-saudi-arabia\/","title":{"rendered":"Research reveals 7,000-year-old monuments in Saudi Arabia"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>S\u00e3o Paulo \u2013 Stone structures erected about 7,000 years ago in what is now Saudi Arabia are the earliest largescale stone buildings in the Arabian Peninsula and are probably among the oldest in the world. The information was made public this month by a research project involving institutions in Germany, England and Australia, as well as <a href=\"https:\/\/pressfile.mt.gov.sa\/Home\/Details?id=228353&amp;tableid=1\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Saudi Ministry of Tourism<\/a> officials. A paper on the study was recently published in science journal <em>The Holocene<\/em>. It looked into 104 stone structures known as \u2018mustatil,\u2019 along the southern edge of the Nefud Desert.<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_279281\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-279281\" style=\"width: 300px\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\"><a href=\"https:\/\/anba.com.br\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/08\/10.1177_0959683620950449-fig6.jpeg\"><img fetchpriority=\"high\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-279281 size-medium\" src=\"https:\/\/anba.com.br\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/08\/10.1177_0959683620950449-fig6-300x206.jpeg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"206\" srcset=\"https:\/\/anba.com.br\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/08\/10.1177_0959683620950449-fig6-300x206.jpeg 300w, https:\/\/anba.com.br\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/08\/10.1177_0959683620950449-fig6-1024x702.jpeg 1024w, https:\/\/anba.com.br\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/08\/10.1177_0959683620950449-fig6-768x526.jpeg 768w, https:\/\/anba.com.br\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/08\/10.1177_0959683620950449-fig6-1536x1053.jpeg 1536w, https:\/\/anba.com.br\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/08\/10.1177_0959683620950449-fig6.jpeg 1611w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/a><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-279281\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Two long mustatil walls featuring similar construction techniques<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>The structures are the oldest known largescale landmarks in the Arabian Peninsula. \u201cThe structure we have dated is the oldest large-scale stone structure known from the Arabian Peninsula. The mustatil phenomenon represents a remarkable development of monumental architecture, as hundreds of these structures were built in northwest Arabia,\u201d the <a href=\"https:\/\/journals.sagepub.com\/doi\/figure\/10.1177\/0959683620950449?\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">paper<\/a> reads.<\/p>\n<p>Further research is needed into the function of the structures. One hypothesis is that they might be related to rituals in the context of regional pastoralism.<\/p>\n<p>At the time of construction, between 10,000 and 6,000 years ago, the Arabian Peninsula had rainy weather and therefore a landscape unlike its current one. Stone structures of different kinds are abundant in northern Saudi Arabia. Some are believed to date back to the Neolithic Period, but research into their chronology and what they represented is scarce.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Translated by Gabriel Pomerancblum<\/strong><\/p>\n<div class=\"credits-overlay\" data-target=\".wp-image-279276\">Press Release<\/div>\n<div class=\"credits-overlay\" data-target=\".wp-image-279281\">Press Release<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A study released this month shows details of stone structures in the northwest of the country dating from the year 5,000 BC. Researchers have said these are the oldest known largescale buildings in the Arabian Peninsula.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2316,"featured_media":279276,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[114],"tags":[11910,5006,16871,16870,16876,6004,9595,4129,16875],"class_list":{"0":"post-279287","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-news","8":"tag-arabia-saudita-en","9":"tag-archaeology","10":"tag-construcoes","11":"tag-monumentos","12":"tag-mustatil-en","13":"tag-saudi","14":"tag-saudi-arabia-en","15":"tag-science","16":"tag-stone-structure"},"wps_subtitle":"A study released this month shows details of stone structures in the northwest of the country dating from the year 5,000 BC. Researchers have said these are the oldest known largescale buildings in the Arabian Peninsula. ","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/anba.com.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/279287","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/anba.com.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/anba.com.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/anba.com.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2316"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/anba.com.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=279287"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/anba.com.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/279287\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/anba.com.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/279276"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/anba.com.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=279287"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/anba.com.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=279287"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/anba.com.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=279287"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}