Kites — new discoveries and a new type

The stone structures known as kites and found widely in ‘Arabia’, are one of the more intriguing archaeological traces in what are often arid and bleak landscapes. They were first reported from the air in 1927, and by 1995 — largely through interpretation of old aerial photographs — c.500 had been identified. Now (2012), remote‐sensing techniques of various kinds have produced a huge increase, to over 3000. Recent work has also extended the geographical spread of kites in ‘Arabia’, from south‐eastern Turkey and north‐western Iraq to central Yemen. Much detailed work will be required to develop and refine a typology for kites as a whole and to digest and present data from remote sensing on which specialists may build interpretations and explanations. Current tabulation and mapping, however, already reveal patterns, and the discovery of an unusual form in the desert between Damascus and Palmyra in Syria deserves special attention.     

‘Gates’: a new archaeological site type in Saudi Arabia

The availability of high‐resolution satellite imagery of Saudi Arabia on publicly available platforms such as Google Earth and Bing Maps has been transformational for archaeology. Within just a few years tens of thousands of sites previously unrecorded and scarcely known to the academic world have been mapped. Especially rich in sites are the successive lava fields (harret) stretching from southern Syria through Jordan and down the west coast of the Arabian Peninsula to Yemen, and characterised by the stone‐built structures known to the Bedouin as the ‘works of the old men’. Sites now being revealed include many types familiar from previous research in the wider region but also others of a form previously unknown. ‘Gates’ are one such type, found in large numbers in and around the Harret Khaybar in west‐central Saudi Arabia. They are stone‐built, the walls roughly made and low as with other ‘works’, but quite unlike them in form. Identification, mapping, and preliminary interpretation imply an early date in the sequence of the works—perhaps the very earliest—but no obvious explanation of their purpose can be discerned. Fieldwork is a desideratum.     

Kites of AlUla County and the Ḥarrat ʿUwayriḍ, Saudi Arabia

A comprehensive remote sensing survey of AlUla County in north-west Saudi Arabia has revealed 32 examples of the ancient, stone-built animal traps known as ‘kites’. Noting that most (27) are located on the Ḥarrat ʿ Uwayriḍ, a satellite survey of parts of that lavafield outside of AlUla County was undertaken, identifying a further 175 kites. These show commonalities with ‘V-shaped’ kites previously identified in mountainous areas along the western extents of the Arabian Shield in the Sinai Peninsula, Negev Desert and south-west Saudi Arabia. A study of the form and placement of these kites in their ecological and geological contexts suggests that they are representative of a distinct complex, exhibiting sophisticated morphological adaptations to target specific games over similar terrain.     

Inscribed landscapes in the Black Desert: Petroglyphs and kites at Wisad Pools,Jordan

Petroglyphs are well known in the Negev, eastern and southern Jordan, and the Arabian Peninsula. Intensive documentation of hundreds of petroglyphs at the site of Wisad Pools in the Black Desert of eastern Jordan records animals, humans, hunting traps and geometric designs, connecting people and places to the larger landscape. These were recorded at the landscape scale with drones and photogrammetry, and the local scale through the construction of a database combined with GPS recording and terrestrial photogrammetry. Petroglyphs of animals and hunting traps are significant because the site is located within a landscape that includes enormous and enigmatic hunting traps (desert kites). Mapping these depictions highlights typological distribution, association of types, and relation to landscape features as well as the topography of the basalt boulders on which they were pecked. The depictions of animals and hunting traps provide clues about the use of desert kites, the social role of hunting, communal gatherings, and feasting in the region.