Something strange can be found in the deep deserts of the world. Odd, crescent shaped formations of rocks litter the desert floor.
The formation of these “desert kites” is not a natural phenomenon in contrast to many popular assumptions. They are huge, they are ancient, and they are everywhere.
A desert kite is a dry stone wall structure with sizes varying from a few hundred meters or feet to many kilometers of miles. The characteristic name comes from the fact that they are shaped like kites.
No one exactly knows how long they have been on this planet. However, some of the dated examples prove that they have been around since at least the start of the Holocene period almost 12,000 years ago, and they may predate Homo Sapiens entirely.
Wherever there is a Desert
The first thing that draws attention to desert kites is their location. Always found in deserts, a desert kite is a stone structure with a unique convergent shape made of piles of stones arranged in a line.
They are commonly found in Southwest Asia, the Middle East, as well as in Arabia, North Africa, and Central Asia. The structures vary in length, but their height is much more uniform, with them being typically less than one meter (three feet). You can also find gaps in the lines in places, but whether these are part of the design or caused by millennia of wear is much less clear.
You can find desert kites with different shapes. However, the common structure involves lines made of stones forming two walls known as antennae that can converge into an enclosure with attached cells.
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The cells are an essential part of a desert kite and are what gives them their name. Research has also shown that the presence of pits at the margins of the enclosures and the pits could be several meters or feet deep.
It is these pits which lead to the most common theory about the desert kites. The pits were probably used as killing pits or traps. The average surface area enclosed by kites is 10,200 square meters (110,000 square feet).
So, why killing pits? Well, some consider the kites were constructed by early man, or other related hominids, as traps for animal herds. The shape of the kites suggest that animals would be driven into the relatively small area at the closed end of the desert kite, where they would be cornered and killed by the hunters in these pits. This would explain their ubiquity, their design, and their size in one fell swoop.
The common places in which you can find desert kites feature topographically complex terrain or massifs. However, they are rare in mountainous regions and sloping terrain.
The terrain within the kite is more open than the external terrain and lacks rocks and vegetation. On top of it, kites have variations in orientation in a specific region. The construction of kites in rough terrain makes them difficult to find on the ground.
On the other hand, their enormous size and presence in arid or semiarid terrain ensures that you can find them easily with aerial images. The list of countries where you can find kites includes Armenia, Jordan, Egypt, Kazakhstan, Israel-Palestine, Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Yemen, Turkey, Libya, Uzbekistan, Lebanon and Syria. In addition, they have also been found in South Africa and Mongolia.
A Kite Shaped Structure
The primary reason for which desert kites have earned their distinct name is the kite-shaped structure. The kites are massive stone structures ranging back to prehistoric times and have been notable topics of research for archaeologists worldwide.
Each stone structure stretches across the landscape, resembling a kite with tail strings in shape. It is difficult to determine how ancient people designed and created these structures that are only visible from the air. Most kites were apparently created between 7000 and 9000 years ago, making them one of the oldest known architectural plans in human history.
In the last decade, a project known as Globalkites has been researching desert kites to find the reasons behind their unique structure. The researchers utilized satellite imagery to discover over 6000 desert kites of different sizes and shapes across West and Central Asia and the Middle East. However, researchers have also discovered unique insights that show that you cannot relate them only to a specific kite.
First of all, researchers identified distinct features that make desert kites look like kites. The first feature is the tail string created by more or less continuous lines of stones.
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The lines converge in a walled enclosure that resembles the body of the kite. Subsequently, researchers found that the engravings are similar in shape and structure to other kites in nearby locations. The comparison between the shapes of kites and engravings found in different areas reveals that the engravings could have been prepared as maps for hunters or blueprints for making kites.
But we have known of their existence for more than a century. British Royal Air Force pilots flying over the Middle East in the 1920s documented the first sightings of desert kites as massive patterns in rocky terrain.
Archaeologists have argued about the objective of the kites for years. Some of them assumed that the kites were mere cultural artifacts, while others painted them as enclosures for domesticated animals.
However, as noted above recent research papers have revealed that the primary purpose of a desert kite was to serve as a mass hunting trap. They helped early desert dwellers kill entire herds of game, such as ibex and gazelle.
The hunting feature in the structure of the kites can be found in the massive pits at the lining of the enclosure where animals were captured and killed. The unique shape, placement, and length of the kites showcase the fact that people during that time had knowledge of animal behaviors and landscapes. Due to the lack of accuracy regarding the dating of each kite, it is difficult to determine how hunters developed the design over time.
The design of desert kites reveals a unique aspect of the impact of human effort in changing geography. Ancient hunters have been credited with the creation of kites in arid and semiarid regions.
The primary objective of the kites is to serve as hunting traps with the use of killing pits near the lining of the enclosure. The kite structure helped chase herds of the game into the enclosure and trap them in the pits at the lining.
And so, littering the ancient landscape, these kites tell us about the sophistication of our hunter gathering past, and how we first conquered the landscape.
Top Image: The “head” of a desert kite in Israel, with the long “strings” stretching out behind. Source: Guy Baroz / CC BY-SA 3.0.
By Bipin Dimri
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