Archaeologists have discovered a 4,500-year-old highway network in Saudi Arabia lined with well-preserved ancient tombs.
Researchers from the University of Western Australia have carried out a wide-ranging investigation over the past year, involving aerial surveys conducted by helicopter, ground survey and excavation and examination of satellite imagery.in the Holocene journal in December, they said the"funerary avenues" spanning large distances in the northwestern Arabian counties of Al-'Ula and Khaybar had received little examination until quite recently.
"Often you'll find main roads tend to follow the same routes as the avenues because they tend to be the shortest route between between the two places they're going to," Dalton said."And actually, in some cases, the the tombs themselves are so dense that you can't help but walk on the ancient route itself, because you're sort of hemmed in by the tombs."
Using radiocarbon dating, the researchers determined that a concentrated group of samples dated back to between 2600 and 2000 BC, although the tombs continued to be reused until around 1,000 years ago."These tombs are 4,500 years old, and they're still standing to their original height, which is really unheard of," researcher Melissa Kennedy told CNN.
The researchers think the use of the routes long preceded the tombs, and are still not sure exactly why the tombs were built along the route -- although Kennedy pointed to similar customs linked to land ownership in Greece and Rome in later history.
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