Mysterious Ancient Wall Extending Over 150km Investigated in Jordan

The Aerial Archaeology in Jordan Project has mapped out a mysterious ancient wall in Jordan extending for some 150 kilometers (93 miles), leaving archaeologists perplexed as to how it was built and why.

Live Science reports that the existence of the wall was first reported in 1948 by Sir Alec Kirkbride, a British diplomat in Jordan, who had seen the structure overhead while in an airplane. However, it is only now that the wall has been mapped out in detail with aerial photography by the APAAME, a long-term research project designed to illuminate settlement history in the Near East.

Mapping an Ancient Wall

While the locals have long known about the existence of the wall, no attempts had been made until now to investigate and map out the details of the ancient structure. Archaeologists with the Aerial Archaeology in Jordan project therefore set out to photograph and create a detailed map of the wall, revealing that it contains sections where two walls run side-by-side and other sections where the wall branches off in another direction.

“If we add the spurs and stretches of parallel wall, the total [wall length] may be about 150 km (93 miles),” wrote David Kennedy, a professor at the University of Western Australia, and Rebecca Banks, a research assistant at Oxford University, in a paper published recently in the journal Zeitschrift für Orient-Archäologie.