Rujm el-Hiri
The megalithic complex Rujm el-Hiri ( Arabic , cairn of the wild cat, also Rogem Hiri or Hebrew Gilgal Refaim , wheel of ghosts) is located in the central Golan , about 16 km east of the Sea of Galilee , on a basalt plateau in the part of Syria occupied by Israel . After its discovery in the late 1960s, Israeli researchers carried out initial archaeological digs between 1988 and 1991. The work will be continued in 2009/10 by Michael Freikman from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem .
description
Rujim el-Hiri is located on the volcanic plateau of the Golan, where numerous dolmens from the Middle Bronze Age stand. The structure consists of four concentric circles around a central stone grave, developed as walls. The building material used is the basalt in sizes ranging from field stone to megaliths weighing several tons. The outer circle is about 150 meters in diameter. The walls are up to 3.5 meters wide and partially up to a height of 2.5 meters. Sporadic radial connections between the circles create a labyrinthine structure. Two entrances are in the north and south-east.
In the center of the circles is a six-meter-high cairn made of irregular stones. Its diameter is 25 meters. It has the shape of a truncated cone and is surrounded by a stone wreath. Inside is a round chamber two meters in diameter, to which a narrow passage leads. The chamber consists of large, slightly inwardly inclined stone slabs on which two cap stones, each weighing 5.5 tons, lie. The chamber was robbed in ancient times. Only a few artifacts , including gold earrings and bronze arrowheads , were found during the excavations .
Interpretations
The first excavators assumed that the circles were formed much earlier than the burial mound. The concentric circles could have been between 3000 and 2700 BC during the Early Bronze Age . BC as a ritual and ceremonial center. Only during the late Bronze Age (1400–1300 BC) could the not centrally located burial mound with the chamber have been added.
On the other hand, the architectural design could also indicate a joint planning of circles and cairns. There is no evidence of a cultic structure under the cairn. Typical artifacts known from other cultic centers of this period were not found here.
Michael Freikman found a few more concentric stone circles during his investigations on the Golan , each surrounding a burial mound. Rujm el-Hiri is not the only one, but - with its four stone circles - by far the largest of its kind in the region. Freikmann therefore represents the simultaneity of burial mounds and stone circles and dates their origin to the Chalcolithic . He interprets the complex as a tomb for a leading personality. The size of the square, where 42,000 tons of rock were built, should reflect this importance. A well-organized community must have existed to carry out this construction.
Anthony Aveni and Yonathan Mizrachi interpret Rujm el-Hiri as an astronomical observatory . This theory is supported by the fact that the eastern side, on which the two entrances are also located, was built with greater care.
The archaeologist Rami Arav from the University of Nebraska interprets the complex as a kind of roof , a place of heavenly burial . He refers to the local finds of Chalcolithic ossuaries . If only the bones of the deceased were buried in it, they must have been fleshed out beforehand . As in Tibet or other regions, where there was no cremation due to the lack of firewood and no burial in the ground because of the hard ground, the corpses within the stone circles could have been exposed to vultures.
literature
- Anthony Aveni, Yonathan Mizrachi: The Geometry and Astronomy of Rujm el-Hiri, a Megalithic Site in the Southern Levant. In: Journal of Field Archeology. Vol. 25, No. 4, 1998, ISSN 0093-4690 , pp. 475-496, doi : 10.1179 / 009346998792005261 (abstract, Engl.).
- Stephen Gabriel Rosenberg: The wheel of giants. In: The Jerusalem Post , March 12, 2009, (accessed November 24, 2017).
- Clive Ruggles: Ancient Astronomy. An Encyclopedia of Cosmologies and Myth. ABC-CLIO, Santa Barbara CA et al. 2005, ISBN 1-85109-477-6 , pp. 366-368.
Web links
- Rogem Hiri - An Ancient Mysterious Construction on the Israel Foreign Ministry website
- David Rapp: In the wildcat's pile of stones article from May 2, 2003 in the Israeli newspaper Ha'aretz (engl.)
- Morbid theory in mystery of Israel's answer to Stone Henge Article of November 3, 2011 in the Israeli newspaper Ha'aretz (Eng.)
- Astroarchaeological consideration