Recent excavations show that a prehistoric stone monument that went unnoticed for centuries in a bare of field on the Golan Heights is old as Stonehenge in England.
World Bulletin / News Desk
Known as Rujm el-Hiri in Arabic, meaning the "stone heap of the wild cat" a stone momument in the Golan Heights, recent excavations it was one of the oldest and largest structures in the region, reports Haaretz.
Archaeologists first spotted the monument, by studying an aerial survey. The images were released after Israel captured the territory from Syria during the 'six day war' of 1967.
The complex has five concentric circles, the largest more than 152 meters wide, and a massive burial chamber in the middle. The Hebrew name Gilgal Refaim, or "wheel of giants", is reference to an ancient race of giants mentioned in the Bible. The structure is made of piles of thousands of smaller basalt rocks that together weigh over 40,000 tons.
At this point in time, no one is sure of who has built the structure. 'It's an enigmatic site,' said Uri Berger, an expert on megalithic tombs with the Israel Antiquities Authority, in a report by Daily Mail.
'We have bits of information, but not the whole picture.
'Scientists come and are amazed by the site and think up their own theories.'
According to Haaretz, the entire complex is in an area now used for training by Israel's military, but visitors can explore the walls and crawl into the 20-foot-long burial chamber on weekends and holidays.
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