SACRED SITES

of the Near East

MASSEBOTH
Negev Desert - Circa 10,000 BCE

STONE CIRCLES
Numerous standing stones have been found in the Negev and Sinai deserts. The Hebrew Bible calls them masseboth (mah-tseh-vot; singular massebah), which translates a "pillars" or "standing stones." Most are circular in nature and have been set vertically into the ground, individually or in groups, and are abundant in these desert regions. There are at least 142 independent masseboth sites and most face east, the direction of the rising sun.

They date back to the 11th and 10th millennia BCE. The most common period was the sixth to the third millennia BCE and were continually being erected through the Biblical period and beyond.

Oriented to the cardinal points they were ritual sites and sacred to the desert people. Here they connected the heaven and the earth to gain access to the sky, and in doing so, they were granted access to god. This was the same motivation for the construction of Stonehenge in England.

LUNAR OBSERVATORY
Iraq - Circa 3000 BCE

ZIGGURAT AT UR
The city of UR (modern Muqayyar) lies 168 miles southeast of Baghdad and nine miles from the ancient Euphrates river that once flowed through the city. This was one of the great religious centers of Ancient Sumer and a great power in Mesopotamia. It was originally constructed by Ur-Nammu and at its summit sat the Temple of the Moon. Immediately southeast the ziggurat was a complex containing two temples of Nannar and Ningal. Nannar was the moon god "Sin" and Lord of the Calendar.

He held the chief place in the triad along with Shamash and Ishtar, both his children. His consort was Ningal "great lady" and the judge of mankind on the last day of every year.

RUJM EL-HIRI
Desert of Syrian and Jordan - Circa 4,000 BCE

STONE CIRCLE
Approximately 16 miles east of the Sea of Galilee in the Golan Heights is situated the curious ancient monolithic structure known as Rujm el-Hiri, also known as Gilgal Rephaim. This huge complex of multiple concentric circles with a central cairn is unprecedented anywhere in the Levant. The purpose of this inquiry is to suggest that the existence of Rogem Hiri can best be understood as a cultic site containing an ancient calendrical system utilized by the local pastoral population of the Early Bronze Age to help them predict time periods of agricultural significance. To explain this conclusion, we will begin with a general survey of Rujm el-Hiri and discuss who may have built it and when.

We will consider the suggested alternative functions of the site (especially the possible ritual functions), then finally focus on the prominent indications of a strong ancient awareness of the cosmos as reflected by Rujm el-Hiri alignment with natural phenomena.

Rujm el-Hiri is composed of five concentric stone rings surrounding a central cairn or burial site. The largest ring measures 145m from east to west and 155m from north to south with a circumference of 500m (88-91.1). The wall is preserved to up to 2m high and 3.2-3.3m thick. Two entrances penetrate it, one in the northeast and one in the southeast. Small extension walls, pointing to the north, west, and south extend from the wall in their respective locations. Ring two measures 105m east to west and 115m north to south, 2.6m wide. Ring three is 70 m east to west and 90m north to south, up to 2m wide, and there is an unexplained bulge in the southern part of the ring. The inner two rings are semicircular and narrower, only reaching 1.5m maximum in thickness. At the center of the rings is a burial structure 20m wide and 4.5m high.

The rings are interconnected by a series of what are called radial walls, placed at seemingly random intervals and locations throughout the site, 36 in number. The building blocks of Rujm el-Hiri consist of uncut basalt stones. They range in size from smallish to medium-sized to huge boulders. The site is curiously shallow, located only 2.5m above bedrock at most, and why it was not constructed directly upon the bedrock for a more stable construction is undetermined. Evidence of paving with large flat stones was discovered in much of the site.

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