What was the purpose of the enigmatic stone rings in Saudi Arabia's desert? Who built them?

MONUMENTS OF THE SAUDI DESERT

By Bob Lebling

[FRONTIERS OF SCIENCE, Jan.-Feb. 1981]

Saudi Arabia is a land that abounds in ancient mysteries. Virtually untouched by the

archeologist's spade, its vast deserts, mountain ranges and coastal regions are dotted with

unexplained stone structures, burial mounds and other remnants of long-dead civilizations.

Some of these sites and artifacts can be traced to ancient peoples -- like the Nabataeans,

the Lihyanites and the Queen of Sheba's Sabaeans -- who are known to history but still little

understood.

There are also lost cities -- recorded by the ancients but now forgotten.

Somewhere along the Saudi Red Sea coast, for example, lie the hidden ruins of Leuce

Come, a celebrated trading emporium of the Nabataean Arabs some two thousand years ago,

which served as a key transshipment point for the spices and treasures of the Orient, destined for

Rome and the rest of the Mediterranean world.

Amateur scuba divers have reported underwater stone structures near the coastal village

of Al-Wajh and at other locations north of the port city of Jeddah -- possible clues to the location

of fabled Leuce Come -- but as yet none of these sightings has been confirmed by professional

archeologists.

In the trackless desert wastes of Saudi Arabia's Empty Quarter -- a forbidding sand sea

that repels even the bedouins -- lies another long-dead city, built by an unknown civilization. The

ruins of this "metropolis" were discovered earlier this century by the explorer H. St. John Philby

(father of the Soviet spy Kim Philby) and details of the find are recorded in his unpublished

notes.

But the city has defied all subsequent attempts to locate it. Some believe that the site has

since been totally covered up by the shifting sand dunes of the region. Whatever the cause, its

eventual discovery could force drastic revisions in our knowledge of ancient history, for there is

strong evidence that this city may be older than any other known urban settlement.

The Empty Quarter has been uninhabitable for thousands of years. The last time people

could have settled in that region was some 6,000 to 9,000 years ago. Then, archeologists tell us,

the area enjoyed regular rainfall and even possessed freshwater lakes.

There has been speculation that this lost city could have been built by the legendary

people of Ad, who according to Arab tradition were the first inhabitants of the Arabian

Peninsula. Ignatius Donnelly, the father of Atlantology, believed the Adites were survivors from

the sunken continent of Atlantis.

But among the most puzzling of the ancient mysteries of Saudi Arabia are archeological

sites that are not lost -- the hundreds, perhaps thousands, of enigmatic stone circles that are found

throughout the country's deserts, in the hills and mountains, and along the sandy coasts of the

Red Sea.

The stone rings of Saudi Arabia are reminiscent of the megalithic structures of ancient

Europe. Their circular walls, built of piled stones, are a foot or two high and range in diameter

from about fifteen feet to over a hundred yards. Occasionally the walls are formed of individual

standing stones, two or three feet tall.

The Saudi stone circles differ from their European counterparts in that they frequently

have "tails," one or more appendages emanating from the center or the edge of the circle that

sometimes extend for hundreds of yards out into the wilderness.

No one knows who built the rings or when they were constructed. No local legends shed

light on their origins. All that is known is that they are very old, and predate the birth of Islam in

the 7th century A.D.

The function of the stones is also a mystery.

Several years ago, a Saudi newspaper speculated that they may be ancient grave sites. The

paper discarded an old theory that the rings may have served as sheep or goat pens, on the

grounds that the walls are frequently too low for this purpose.

Ron Worl of the U.S. Geological Survey's office in Jeddah conducted an informal survey

of a cluster of circles near the Red Sea coast. His conclusion: that the stone rings could be the

desert equivalent of rock carvings, ancient signposts that pointed the way to freshwater springs,

oases and caravan routes.

Worl found that several of the "tails" led to water holes or old desert paths. But those

rings with more than one tail posed problems.

The geologist described a particular circle 250 feet across with two tails, one about 400

feet long and the other some 70 feet long. The longer tail led to water and the shorter to a route

across the desert. Could long tails signify freshwater springs and short ones caravan routes? This

is doubtful, since Worl found that in the case of other rings this standard sometimes failed to

apply; and occasionally, the tails led nowhere.

Another theory is that the stone circles have some astronomical significance, with the

tails aligned to specific stars or annual phenomena such as sunrise at summer solstice. But no

measurements have yet been taken to confirm or refute this theory.

In 1977, British writer Shirley Kay visited a cluster of stones located in a hilly region

about fifty miles north of Jeddah. The rings, like most others, were far from areas of human

habitation.

She described one circle perched on a hilltop:

"Four dark lines run down the side [of the hill]; they are the low stone walls (or

tails) connected to the circle at the top. The walls are of dark, basalt stones, laid without

mortar and very tumble-down. At their highest point they are not above a third of a meter.

Near the base of the longest wall I noticed numerous higher piles of stones."

When she reached the crest of the hill, Kay saw "the much higher wall of a substantial

circle." The wall was three feet high in places and formed a ring some sixty feet across.

"Within the ring, near its western side, was another rather higher structure" about four

feet high and three feet in diameter, she said.

"I climbed on top and found myself looking down into its hollow center. It was just like

looking down into a shallow well, except that rightminded folk do not build wells above ground,

nor on rocky hilltops either."

Kay speculated that this well-like structure within the ring was "a stone built tumulus, an

ancient grave, but why it is not in the center of the circle I do not know."

Beyond the ring, dotting the hillside, were other smaller circles, much like the "well"

structure. While most of these were "open to the sky or completely collapsed, one still had

roofing stones in place, but tilted into the center."

There were no objects or artifacts nearby to indicate who had built the structures, Kay

reported.

These stone circles -- and the others -- will remain enigmas until archeologists have an

opportunity to study them in detail.

"One would have to excavate them before any tentative conclusions could be drawn," said

Dr. Gus Van Beek, a Smithsonian archeologist who has worked extensively in the Middle East.

Van Beek said the circles are found not only in Saudi Arabia but in other countries of the

Arabian Peninsula.

"I myself saw some very large circles in the Hadramaut region of South Yemen," he said.

"They were about a hundred feet in diameter, and built of standing stones, some waist-high."

But so far none of the stone circles of Arabia has been excavated or even measured.

Within the past few years, Saudi Arabia has been opening its doors to foreign archeologists

interested in probing the country's pre-Islamic past. But most of the recent archeological efforts

have been devoted to surveying sites traceable to known ancient peoples, such as the Nabataeans,

and there has been very little actual excavation.

Eventually, though, the Saudi archeologists and their foreign colleagues will have to

begin focusing on the mystery of the rings. Given their size and sheer numbers, the stone circles

are impossible to ignore, and are bound to shed important light on the ancient history of the

Arabian Peninsula.

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