Mystery ancient stone structures found in Saudi desert

Several of the mysterious 'gates' can be seen in this image.

Over 400 unexplained structures have been discovered in the Saudi Arabian desert using Google Earth.

Found by Australian researcher David Kennedy whose team has already identified thousands of archaeological sites in the Middle-East, these peculiar man-made edifices seem to defy explanation.

Thought to have been constructed between 2,000 and 9,000 years ago by the ancestors of the modern-day Bedouin people, the structures are only visible when viewed from high above.

"You can't see them in any intelligible way at the ground level but once you get up a few hundred feet, or with a satellite even higher, they stand out beautifully," said Kennedy.

"I refer to them as Gates because when you view them from above they look like a simple field gate lying flat, two upright posts on the sides, connected by one or more long bar."

"They don't look like structures where people would have lived nor do they look like animal traps or for disposing of dead bodies. It's a mystery as to what their purpose would have been."

He said not much was known about the people who built them, but they were believed to be ancestors of the modern-day Bedouin.


Their discovery came about by chance after a Saudi doctor who was interested in the area's history contacted him, having heard about his work in Jordan.

"He said 'I'm interested in the heritage of my country, I've spotted on Google Earth that there are some rather strange structures in the lava fields'," Kennedy told broadcaster ABC.

"He sent the coordinates of them to me and I had a look and I was bowled over by them."

Kennedy, a founding director of the Endangered Archaeology in the Middle East and North Africa project, specializes in aerial archeology.

Since 1997, he and his team have photographed tens of thousands of stone-built structures, mostly in Jordan, ranging from giant circles to animal traps and funerary monuments.