They were designated a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1994.
They stretch from Syria to Saudi Arabia, can be seen from the air but not the ground, and are virtually unknown to the public.
The giant stone structures forming forms of radiant often spoke wheels on the inside. Here are a bunch of wheels in the Azraq Oasis
You are in the Middle East's own version of the Nazca lines - cut old "geolyphs" or the drawings, the deserts of southern Peru - and now, thanks to the new technology of satellite mapping and aerial photography program Jordan, researchers are discovering more of them than ever before.
Their number in the thousands.
Archaeologists on the "wheels", these stone structures have a variety of models, namely a common circle with radiating rays inside.
Researchers believe they date back to antiquity, at least 2,000 years. They are often on the lava fields, ranging from 82 feet to 230 feet (25 meters to 70 meters) found.
"In Jordan alone, we have stone structures, the much more numerous than (the) Nazca lines were much more extensive in the area they cover, and much older," said David Kennedy, professor of classical history and old University of Western Australia.
Kennedy's new research being published in an upcoming issue of the Journal of Archaeological Science, shows that these wheels are part of a variety of rocky landscapes.
These dragons are (infiltrate the stone structures and murder is used by animals) trailer (lines, rock piles, which will run from graves) and walls, mysterious structures in the walks through the countryside until several hundred meters and have no apparent practical application.
Studies of his team are part of a long-term aerial reconnaissance, which seeks at archaeological sites in Jordan. As of now, Kennedy and colleagues, which were used for the structure or meaning it can take place in confusion. (History of the most overlooked mysteries)
Fascinating structures
Major field of expertise Kennedy Roman archeology, but he was fascinated by these structures, if, as a student, it represents the pilots of the Royal Air Force have played in the 1920's on the road by air via Jordan. "You can not but be fascinated by these things," says Kennedy.
In fact, in 1927, RAF Flight Lieutenant Percy Maitland published a report on the ruins of the ancient journal. He said they come to "Land of lava" and said they and the stone structures are known to the Bedouins as "the works of old men."
Kennedy and his team are studying the structures with the help of aerial photos and Google Earth, because the wheels are hard to get out of the earth, says Kennedy.
"Sometimes when you're really there on the site, you can be something of a model, but not very easy," he said. "As if you are only a few hundred meters or if the can go, for me, is clearly in the foreground, what form. "
The drawings must be clear, as they were originally built. "People may have walked passed them, for centuries, millennia, without a clear idea of what was the shape."
(The team has created an archive of images from different sides of the wheel in the Middle East.)
What were they doing?
So far, none of the wheels seem to have dug up something that made them, and understand their goals more difficult. Archeologists have speculated they are studying in the pre-Google Earth-AD, it is the remains of houses and cemeteries. Kennedy said that none of these explanations of the work seems to be good.
"There seems to be some continuity between cultures in this region where there was a need for people, structures that were built to be circular."
Some of the wheels are in isolation, while others are grouped. At a place near the oasis of Azraq, hundreds of them can be grouped into a dozen groups. "Some of these collections around Azraq is truly remarkable," says Kennedy.
In Saudi Arabia, Mr. Kennedy has a team of styles of wheels found quite different: some are rectangular and not to all wheels, others are circular, but included are two bars rays often in the same aligned towards the sun and from the Middle East.
Those in Jordan and Syria on the other hand, rays and many do not seem to be aligned with astronomical phenomena. "In search of a large number of them, a number of years, I have not been any model in the way the shelves were designed beaten," said Kennedy.
Cairns are often connected to the wheels. Sometimes they go around the circumference of the wheel, while other times they are on the shelves. In Saudi Arabia, looking for some of Cairns, in the air, because they are linked to old graves.
The dating of the wheel is difficult because they appear to be prehistoric, but until now could only 2,000 years ago. The researchers found that the wheels are often at the top of the dragon, which date as far back as 9000 years found, but never the reverse. "This indicates that the wheels are more recent than the dragon," said Kennedy.
Amelia Sparavigna, professor of physics at the Politecnico di Torino, Italy, Live Science said in an e-mail that is true, these structures are known in the geoglyphs in the same way as the Nazca lines . "If we have a" "define how a large sign on the bottom of an artificial origin, the stone circles are geoglyphs" geoglyphs Sparavignawrote in their e-mail.
The function of the wheels can also, like the mysterious drawings in the desert of Nazca are.
"When you consider, in general, the stone circles were as places of ancestor worship, or places of rituals associated with astronomical events or with the seasons, they have the same function geoglyphs [the] America South, the Nazca lines, for example. The design is different, but the function could be the same, "she wrote in her e-mail.
Kennedy said that now the importance of the wheels is a mystery. "The question is, what was the purpose?
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