Ancient circles in Jordan, the origin of which no one can explain (9 photos)

The Great Circles are a cluster of 12 gigantic stone ring structures scattered across Jordan and Syria.





Despite being over 2,000 years old, they have received surprisingly little attention from archaeologists. They remain virtually unexplored, even by local experts.



The circles were discovered in 1920. British pilot Lionel Rees was flying over the deserts of what would later become Jordan and spotted them from the air. Rees' photographs were among the first aerial photographs of such archaeological sites.





However, for unknown reasons, the discovery was ignored and forgotten. It took another 60 years for the circles to be remembered again. And only in the last 10 years have they begun to attract attention.



The large circles are composed of low stone walls, no more than a couple of meters high. They are almost perfectly circular, with diameters ranging from 220 to 365 meters.



Originally, the circles had no passages (the wall was solid), although over the centuries, some of the masonry has collapsed. Roman roads pass through two of the circles.



This proves that the structures are over 2,000 years old, but they may actually be much older.



Constructing such circles wasn't difficult. All it took was local stone, a dozen workers, and a week of diligent labor. But why they were built remains a mystery. They were unlikely to be cattle pens: the walls are too low to contain the animals. Besides, why would a pen need a perfectly round shape?



Of the 12 circles, eight are located in west-central Jordan, between Wadi Al-Hasa and the edge of the Shar'a Escarpment, and four more are located just north of the Azraq Oasis. One additional Great Circle was recently discovered in Syria.