![]() I have been there since Rujm el Hiri is on the Golan Trail. The monument sits in a relatively flat plateau, absent of any associated structures or ancient settlements, but in the surrounding landscape are hundreds of monolithic dolmens and evidence of nine Chalcolithic dwellings.Īrchaeologists speculate as to the monuments function, with theories ranging from the suggestion that Rujm el-Hiri was used like the Dakhmas of the Zoroastrians, for astronomical observations of the constellations, a burial site (although no human remains have been found), an ancient calendar, or a religious centre for conducting passage rites in which the recently deceased journeyed to the netherworld. Sixteen kilometers east of the Sea of Galilee in the western part of the historic Bashan plain of the Golan Heights, Israel are the ruins of a most unusual structure, which scholars believe was built at least in part for archaeo-astronomical purposes. Rujm el-Hiri is an ancient megalithic monument consisting of concentric circles of stone with a tumulus at center.1 It is located in the Israeli-occupied portion of the Golan Heights, some 16 kilometres east of the coast of the Sea of Galilee, in the middle of a large plateau covered with hundreds of dolmens. The site has two entrances that face the northeast and southeast, with the northeast entrance leading to an accessway into the centre of the circles that points in the general direction of the June solstice sunrise. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed in whole or part without the express written permission of AncientPages.The central mound was added to the moment during the Late Bronze Age around 1550 BC – 1200 and was built from smaller basalt rocks that reach a height of 4.6 metres, concealing a large circular cell (although Michael Freikman of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem suggests that the mound dates from the Chalcolithic period based on the discovery of a small pin in the cell). ![]() Yonaguni ruins It is an underwater stone formation located near Yonaguni Island in southwest. in Hebrew means 'Wheel' and refers to the circular shape of the ruins. Mysterious Megalith Monument of the Near East Rujm El Hiri. ![]() Sutherland - Senior Staff WriterĬopyright © All rights reserved. Rujm el-Hiri is an ancient megalithic monument consisting of concentric circles of stone with a tumulus at center. Nina continued, 'Known for centuries as 'Rujm el-Hiri', which translated from. This village may have been related to the complex. Or was it? The question is "why would the builders have undertaken such a massive building project, collecting 37,000 tons of stone and painstakingly laying them down to last forever, when the same task could have been completed using one rock and a stick?" One structure, called Rujum el-Hiri, isin the Golan Heights (an area to the east of the Sea of Galilee) and has four circles with a cairn at its center. In the foreground are ruins of a large prehistoric village dated to the Chalcolithic period (4500-3150 BC). One function of the circles then, was an astronomical observatory and stellar calendar. ![]() Anthony Aveni of Colgate University discovered that in 3000 BC, the first rays of the summer solstice would have appeared directly through the northeast opening as observed from the central tumulus, while the southeast opening provided a direct view of Sirius. In 1968 Professor Yonathan Mizrahi of the Department of Anthropology at Harvard University and Prof. Scholars agree that construction started as early as 3,500 BC and other parts may have been added to over the next two thousand years. Rujm el-Hiri (Arabic:, Rujm al-Hr, means cairn of the wildcat Hebrew: Gilgal.
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