Summary: Stunning discovery in Saudi Arabia of “funerary avenues” connecting oases to pasture lands, lined with thousands of pendant and ring-shaped tombs, demonstrate that ancient Arabians were more connected to one another than previously thought.
Bury your dead in the choicest of our tombs. None of us will withhold from you his tomb to hinder you from burying your dead. – Genesis 23:6 (ESV)
The Ancient Arabian Highway of Tombs
Spectacular ancient “funerary avenues” have been discovered in north-west Arabia, according to archeologists from the University of Western Australia (UWA). These ancient highways often connect oases with pasture lands and may demonstrate Bronze age civilizations settling in communities. Some wonder whether these puzzling monuments might even be connected to the wandering Israelites after the Exodus.
“Funerary avenues were the major highway networks of their day, and show that the populations living in the Arabian Peninsula 4,500 years ago were far more socially and economically connected to one another than we previously thought,” said Dr. Matthew Dalton, from UWA’s School of Humanities, the lead author of the findings published in the journal, The Holocene.
Researchers have named these long-distance corridors “funerary avenues” because of the thousands of elaborate burial monuments that line them. Most of the monuments bordering the avenues are near stable water sources. Some roads are painted with red rocks but most are “formed by the smooth wear of the ground by the footprints of ancient people, especially the hooves of livestock,” explained Dalton.
Extensive Research Findings
Many ancient pathways crisscross Saudi Arabia and some of these were known to contain numerous mysterious stone structures. To investigate the structures, satellite imagery and helicopter-based aerial photography were used by the UWA team working under the Royal Commission for Al-Ula (RCA), established to protect the area’s natural and historical heritage. Ground survey and excavation were also employed to locate and analyze an area of over 61,000 square miles containing archeological remains dating across thousands of years.
Around 18,000 tombs were discovered in the Saudi Arabia cities of Al-Ula and Khaybar, with 11,000 of them being part of the highway. At 105 miles, this is the longest funeral road discovered yet.
The tombs are shaped like pendants with tails or rings with a cairn in the center circled by a wall of up to 6.5 feet in height. “These tombs are still standing to their original height, which is really unheard of. So, I think that’s what particularly marks Saudi Arabia out from the rest of the region – just the level of preservation is unbelievable,” said researcher Melissa Kennedy.
Until recently, little was known about these structures, but it is now becoming clear that the majority are tombs due to the human remains found and the presence of stone-lined burial chambers large enough for one individual or a small group.
“The people, who live in these areas, have known about them for thousands of years. But I think it wasn’t really known, until we got satellite imagery, just how widespread they are,” explained Dalton.
The monuments appear to have been built with visual prominence as a major concern. They often are found on high ground and could have easily been seen along the sightlines of those walking the highly-trafficked routeways.
“These oases, especially Khaybar, exhibit some of the densest concentrations of funerary monuments known worldwide,” Dalton added. “The sheer number of Bronze Age tombs built around them suggests that populations had already begun to settle more permanently in these favorable locations at this time.”
“By following these networks, people should have been able to travel at least 530 km. [330 miles] from north to south. There are also hints of such avenues in southern Saudi Arabia and Yemen. These require further research, but could suggest even longer-distance movements by ancient populations,” according to Dalton.
Little is known about the funeral rituals that took place along the path. Human remains from the tombs are in poor shape and some tombs have been robbed, leaving no relics behind. Still with what has been discovered so far, “it’s not difficult to imagine that the tombs were used to remember or commemorate the dead, especially as the descendants or relations of those buried within them would have probably walked past them frequently during the course of their everyday lives,” Dalton said.
A Possible Connection to the Exodus?
One question concerning these ancient stone monuments is whether they might have some connection to the 40 years of wilderness wandering after the Exodus. Regardless of where Mount Sinai was located, it is possible that the Israelites spent much of that wandering period in the Arabian Peninsula rather than the Sinai Peninsula. During this time, every Israelite man (except two) over the age of 20 died in the wilderness.
…your dead bodies shall fall in this wilderness, and of all your number, listed in the census from twenty years old and upward, who have grumbled against me, not one shall come into the land where I swore that I would make you dwell, except Caleb the son of Jephunneh and Joshua the son of Nun. But your little ones, who you said would become a prey, I will bring in, and they shall know the land that you have rejected. But as for you, your dead bodies shall fall in this wilderness. – Numbers 14:29-32
If the Israelite population was the higher option that results when the Hebrew term “eleph” is interpreted in its normal sense of “thousand” (rather than “chief” or “unit” as some prefer), then more than 600,000 men would have been buried in the wilderness over those 40 years. The Bible says nothing about the style of graves for these fallen Israelites, but it does say heaps of uncut stones were raised for altars, memorials, and over the dead who were cursed, as was the case for Achan in Joshua 7:26. Could at least some of these Arabian tombs be associated with the Israelites? Might a large number of graves have resulted from a massive population in the course of decades, rather than lower populations over multiple centuries?
Interestingly, the highest concentration of tombs has been discovered in a region near and just southeast of Mount Bedr (Hala-‘l Badr in Arabic), which is the Mount Sinai candidate favored by British physicist Colin Humphreys who appeared in The Red Sea Miracle films.
Dating is one key to understanding if any of these tombs might be connected to the wandering Israelites. Based on surface finds and associated structures, past estimates have been made that the tombs date from the Chalcolithic to the Iron Ages (bracketing the Exodus period). It should be noted that, so far, few of these tombs have been radiometrically dated.
Initial carbon 14 dating of human bones in some of the graves that have been sampled, points to the major construction phase of the pendants in Al-Ula and Khaybar counties being from about 2600-2000 BC. This is 1,100-500 years older than the early Exodus date in the 15th century BC. There is a debate about whether there could be carbon dating errors in this era of history, but the discrepancy appears to be in the range of about 1-3 centuries and not to the extent that would align these results with the Exodus.
Others have proposed that the entire method of radiometric dating for ancient periods is suspect and that there is another pattern of evidence matching the Exodus at the end of the Early Bronze Age (Old Kingdom of Egypt). The findings that these remains pertain to late in the Early Bronze Age could then actually align with that hypothesis.
Complicating attempts of dating is that the reuse of the structures for burials (as well as looting) in later periods may have been common. It appears that similar structures in the region cover a wide swath of history. Far to the south, burials in Yemen were dated to 300-400 years older. To the north, pendant burials in parts of Jordan yielded dates about 2000 years younger.
There also seems to be a development of at least some of the different styles over the centuries, with some being built over or next to older examples. Some styles dominated the earliest phase and others took over in subsequent eras. The styles also appear to differ across geographic regions.
The authors of the study suggest that periods of drought caused more permanent settlement near oases and wadi systems, while wetter periods allowed for a more widespread pastoral lifestyle. This situation may also have allowed both strategies to exist simultaneously. Oases could have provided reliable water for both settled communities and pasture for the herds of nomads. This may be similar to Israel’s history during the Judges and early kings’ eras when much of the population was mobile but benefitted by interacting with cities.
It is still possible that a large segment of activity will be identified in later periods that could line up with more standard Exodus timeframes. But of course, the date is only one factor in establishing a potential connection to anything biblically related. Much more study is needed to construct an accurate picture of these populations, and that research is currently ramping up. Whatever might be revealed promises to provide fascinating insights into these enigmatic structures and the people who built them.
Conclusion
Project Director Dr. Hugh Thomas, from UWA’s School of Humanities, said the research from these finds tops off a remarkable year for archeologists. “The papers published in 2021 have helped demonstrate that in ancient times Al-Ula and Khaybar were characterized by a rich and dynamic occupational landscape,” Dr. Thomas said. “The archeological finds coming out of these regions have the potential to profoundly change our understanding of the early history of the Middle East.” With finds such as these we keep on thinking.
TOP PHOTO: “Funerary Avenue” tombs. (credit: The University of Western Australia)
