The dual cartouches of Ramesses III discovered in Jordan’s Wadi Rum. Courtesy Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities, Jordan.

The Jordanian Minister of Tourism and Antiquities announced the discovery of the cartouche of Pharaoh Ramesses III (1186–1155 BCE) carved into a rock face near Wadi Rum in southern Jordan. A first-of-its-kind discovery in the country, it has been hailed as “rare, tangible evidence of pharaonic Egypt’s historical presence in the region.” Although it is the first such inscription discovered in Jordan, a series of cartouches belonging to Ramesses III have been discovered elsewhere, marking out an ancient trade route between Egypt and the Arabian Peninsula.

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Leaving a Mark

Among the countless carvings found throughout Wadi Rum, the inscription features two cartouches, one with the birth name of Ramesses III and the other with his throne name. “This is a landmark discovery that enhances our understanding of ancient connections between Egypt, Jordan, and the Arabian Peninsula,” said Lina Annab, the Jordanian Minister of Tourism and Antiquities.

Several other inscriptions of Ramesses III have been discovered outside of Egypt, carved along a lengthy trade route that connected Egypt with the Arabian Peninsula. These inscriptions have helped archaeologists pinpoint the route itself, with several cartouches found throughout the Sinai and Israel and one as far south as Tayma in Saudi Arabia. The Wadi Rum inscription, which is located close to the border between Jordan and Saudi Arabia, provides yet another marker on that route.

According to Zahi Hawass, the former Egyptian Minister of Tourism and Antiquities, “The discovery is crucial. It could open the door to a deeper understanding of Egypt’s interactions with the southern Levant and Arabian Peninsula over 3,000 years ago.”

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Neolithic homes: A standing Stone Circle with upright stone walls. McMahon et al.

While little is known about the Neolithic people of northwest Arabia, recent excavations in the region have showcased their cultural complexity as well as their connections with the Levant. Publishing in the journal Levant, an international team of archaeologists presented the first detailed description of long-term Neolithic homes in the region, showing that northern Arabia had a much higher level of occupation than previously assumed. The study also shed new light on what these Neolithic people ate, the tools they used, and who they traded with.

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Building Homes in the Stone Age

Part of a multiyear regional project in the Harrat ‘Uwayrid, between the Hijaz mountains and Nefud desert, the team identified hundreds of domestic structures known as standing stone circles. Dating to the sixth and fifth millennia BCE, these structures consist of concentric rings of massive upright stone slabs placed end to end, with another single stone slab in the center of the structure. According to one of the researchers, timbers would then be placed between the rows of stones, leaning in towards a central pillar, with the roof of the dwelling placed over top.

While most of the houses ranged from 13 feet to 26 feet in diameter, some complex examples reached diameters as large as 80 feet. Despite some of the excavated circles being in use for a thousand years, they were not year-around dwellings but seasonal structures, built by the nomadic people of the region who likely returned to the site year after year.

Map of Saudi Arabia, showing the location of the Neolithic houses. Courtesy McMahon et al.

The finds discovered inside the circles that the team excavated shed even more light on the people who used them. Among the faunal remains are many domesticated animals, including sheep and goats but also cattle. These domestic animals were likely introduced directly from their Levantine neighbors, as they are not indigenous to the area.

Animals, however, were not the only thing imported from the Levant. Among the stone tools discovered in the circles, a number are very similar to Levantine styles, especially the arrowheads, which are nearly identical to Levantine examples. It is not known if these arrowheads were traded items or were made locally using adopted technology. Indeed, even the stone circles are comparable to the domestic structures of hunter-herder groups found hundreds of miles away in Jordan.

Neolithic chert arrowheads found in the standing stone circles that are similar to Levantine models. Courtesy McMahon et al.

In addition to the Levant, these Neolithic people also appear to have traded for items— including decorative shells and jewelry—that came from the Red Sea, 75 miles to the west. Indeed, trade may have allowed the people of the Harrat ‘Uwayrid to flourish in this period, as the introduction of domestic animal species provided them with the flexibility to withstand the region’s highly variable weather conditions.

Not all aspects of Neolithic life in North Arabia were influenced by the Levant. One particularly local expression of culture is the presence of monumental stone structures known as mustatils. Dating from the same time, these open-air sanctuaries, which could reach hundreds of feet long, contain similar finds to those of the stone circles and likely served the religious and cultic needs of the local nomadic peoples.

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The monolith with an engraved ancient blueprint at Jibal al-Khashabiyeh, Jordan. Courtesy SEBAP & Crassard et al. 2023 PLOS ONE.

Archaeologists in Jordan and Saudi Arabia have discovered the world’s oldest known blueprints. Dating to 8,000 years ago, the blueprints are precise scale carvings of nearby desert kites, mega-structures thousands of feet long that were used for hunting wild animals. Writing in the journal PLOS ONE, the team argued that these blueprints must have been made by the people who built or used the kites, as the structures are far too large for their overall shape and structure to be seen from the ground.

Designing a Desert Kite

Discovered at two separate sites—Jibal al-Khashabiyeh in southeastern Jordan and Jebel az-Zilliyat in northwestern Saudi Arabia—the ancient blueprints depict nearby desert kites in exceptional detail. According to the international team of researchers led by Rémy Crassard, Wael Abu-Azizeh, and Olivier Barge, the kites themselves were made of multiple stone walls, sometimes extending for miles, that converged to a single point or enclosure. The walls functioned to funnel gazelle and other animals into the small area at the end of the kite, where hunters would be waiting.

The engraved stone with close up of blueprints at Jibal al-Khashabiyeh. Courtesy Crassard et al. 2023 PLOS ONE.

The blueprint discovered at Jibal al-Khashabiyeh was uncovered in a small hunting camp dating to the Pre-Pottery Neolithic B (c. 8800–6500 BCE). It was carved in shallow relief into a large standing stone and depicts a desert kite measuring roughly 1.5 feet tall, with an enclosure over 1.5 feet in diameter. Comparing this to similar kites in the area, the team estimated that the carving was done at a scale of roughly 1:425.

Drawing of the kites’ representation at Jebel az-Zilliyat, Saudi Arabia. Courtesy Crassard et al. 2023 PLOS ONE.

While the Jibal al-Khashabiyeh carving depicts a single kite, the drawing from Jebel az-Zilliyat shows a pair of structures. Carved into a massive boulder found in a dry riverbed, the carvings are twice the size of the al-Khashabiyeh blueprint and closely match the shapes of two kites discovered about 1.5 miles away from the site. The researchers believe these drawings were made at a scale of 1:175.

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“The extreme precision of these engravings is remarkable, representing gigantic neighboring Neolithic stone structures,” the team wrote. “They reveal a widely underestimated mental mastery of space perception, hitherto never observed at this level of accuracy in such an early context.”

Aerial view of a desert kite from Jebel az-Zilliyat, Saudi Arabia. Credits O. Barge, CNRS.

While people have been reproducing images of their surroundings for 40,000 years or more, it was previously assumed that true-to-life depictions did not appear until at least the third millennium BCE in Mesopotamia and Egypt, while a few semi-representative models may have been produced for a millennium or two before then. This makes the kite carvings the earliest known realistic blueprints, a feat made even more remarkable given the massive size of the kites themselves. It is, however, not certain what purpose the carvings served, whether they were intended as construction plans, used to map out hunting strategies, or perhaps had a ritual or symbolic function. Non-schematic representations of desert kites are widespread, with some also including depictions of hunters and animals. A 9,000-year-old ritual complex also found at Jibal al-Khashabiyeh, features a drawing of a kite carved into an anthropomorphic stone figure.

Desert Kites and Neolithic Hunting

Map of the distribution of desert kites. Courtesy Crassard et al. 2023 PLOS ONE.

Desert kites were a common type of hunting trap used throughout the arid and semiarid regions of prehistoric southwest Asia, with over 6,000 examples found from Saudi Arabia to Kazakhstan. The kites functioned as giant funnels, forcing animals into an ever-smaller area until they reached a central corral outfitted with pit traps. The first kites were constructed as early as 7000 BCE, making them some of the oldest large-scale constructions from anywhere in the world. It was not until the early 20th century, however, and the advent of aerial photography that modern researchers became aware of the kites, as their massive size only allowed them to be discernable from above. Today, researchers identify them with satellite imagery before surveying them on the ground. These features would have required mass hunting strategy and wide-scale cooperation and resource mobilization, both for their use and construction. As researchers continue to learn more about them and the people responsible for their construction, the sophistication and advancement of Neolithic culture comes ever more into focus.

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Two neolithic shrines located in the Khaybar province of Saudi Arabia. Courtesy AASKSA and The Royal Commission for AI-‘Ula.

Some 1,600 monumental stone structures known as mustatils dot the desert landscape of northwestern Saudi Arabia. Constructed out of two long walls connecting thick ends, these rectangular neolithic enclosures were used by the nomadic people of Arabia some 7000 years ago. According to an article published in the journal Plos One, the structures served as a location for sacrifice to an unknown deity or possibly for pilgrimages. This makes mustatils  some of the earliest examples of religious practices in the area and an evidence of a large-scale cultural practice.

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A Desert Shrine

The mustatils–meaning “rectangle,” in Arabic–have long been some of the most enigmatic features of Saudi Arabia’s neolithic landscape. It was only with the excavations of a remote mustatil, 35 miles east of the city of Al-‘Ula, that a plausible hypothesis for their purpose was put forward. Examining the 460-foot-long structure, the team–led by archaeologists from the University of Western Australia–discovered a rich assemblage of animal bones, specifically the horns and skull bones of large ruminants. These bones were found congregated around a large stone erected in a chamber at one end of the mustatil.

Having examined the Al-‘Ula mustatil and others in the region, the team proposes that these structures most likely operated as open-air sanctuary sites for the nomadic peoples, who would gather there and render sacrifices to their god or gods. It is possible that the standing stones are connected to the later pre-Islamic practice of betyls (Arabic for “house of the god”), since they may have functioned as a mediator between the people and their gods for which the sacrifices were made. The Al-‘Ula mustatil has been carbon-dated to the end of the sixth millennium BCE and may be one of the earliest examples of religious practices in the region.

Aerial photo of the Al-‘Ula region with the mustatil visible in the lower center of the image. Courtesy AASKSA and The Royal Commission for Al-‘Ula.

The recovered animal remains apparently accumulated over a period of time, suggesting that the enclosures were used repeatedly. Given this fact and the secluded location of the mustatils, the team further proposed that they may be evidence for a large-scale pilgrimage practice in which a group, or various groups, converged to reaffirm their collective identity through the performance of their religious practices. Based on the prevalence of horns and skull remains, it is likely that only the head of the animal was offered as a sacrifice, while the rest of the carcass was utilized during feasting associated with the ritual. However, so far, no clear evidence of feasting has been found near the mustatils.

Cattle and Cult in Ancient Arabia

Surprisingly, the predominant animal used in these hypothetical performances appears to have been domesticated cattle, which represent nearly 90 percent of the faunal remains. This is particularly striking, as cattle require a large quantity of food and water, both of which are assumed lacking in northwestern Saudi Arabia at the time. The surprising evidence for sacrifices of cattle, therefore, indicates that the climatic conditions must have been much better than assumed and that people assigned extreme value to the sacrifices.

“The predominance of cattle suggests that the region had enough vegetation and water to sustain herding, which could indicate the continuation of the Holocene Humid Period in this region. It suggests that our understanding of the Neolithic period in the Arabian Peninsula needs further revision,” said Melissa Kennedy, director of the excavation.

Found throughout the region, mustatils spread across an area of over 115,000 square miles. “Collectively, what we’ve seen across all these monuments is the suggestion that a large part of northern Arabia was marked by a similar cultic belief and ritual construction, as well as pilgrimage activity – a more connected landscape than was usual for this period,” Kennedy stated.

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Ramesses III (first half of the12th century B.C.E.) is offering incense and libation to the composite deity of creation and death, Ptah-Sokar. The scene appears in the pharaoh’s tomb in the Valley of the Kings, on the west bank of the Nile opposite Luxor. Incense and metals were most likely the commodities that the ancient Egyptians sought out when traversing the largely inhospitable parts of northern Arabia.
Credit: CC BY-NC-SA 2.0; by kairoinfo4u

Hawass has been reluctant to provide specifics on the planned archaeological mission and its expectations. He nevertheless revealed (to Al-Monitor and other Egyptian media outlets) that one of the two sites to be explored in northwestern Saudi Arabia lies closer to the shore. The other is inland, in the region of Tayma‘—an ancient commercial and economic hub known for its frankincense, copper, gold, and silver. The Egyptian archaeological mission will additionally survey a number of possible trade routes, where they could discover more rock inscriptions attesting to Egypt’s connections with ancient Arabia. New discoveries may potentially reveal a much broader chronological frame for the Egyptian presence in the area and might expand our understanding of their motivations.

Multiple Egyptian antiquities officials expressed their excitement about the first Egyptian mission to dig for pharaonic antiquities in Saudi Arabia. Some experts even voiced their wish that the novel exploration enhance cooperation between Egypt and Saudi Arabia, not only in the area of archaeological research but also on the geopolitical stage. This news of a possible archaeological partnership comes at a time when Egypt and Saudi Arabia appear to be forging closer political and economic ties. The two countries have recently signed more than a dozen agreements and also announced plans to build a gigantic bridge over the Red Sea that would connect both countries.

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Out of Egypt: The Archaeological Context of the Exodus by James K. Hoffmeier
Every spring as Passover nears, TV audiences in America are accustomed to seeing Cecil B. DeMille’s The Ten Commandments starring Charlton Heston as Moses and Yul Brynner as Ramesses II, the putative pharaoh of the Exodus. For millions, the images from this classic film have shaped their understanding of the bondage of the Hebrews in Egypt and their triumphant departure under their liberator Moses who subsequently receives the Law from God at Mt. Sinai.

Egyptian Papyrus Sheds New Light on Jewish History by Karel van der Toorn
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