the finds inside them bear witness to the terrible fate of the people who lived there

The human remains found in the structure, named after an Arabic word meaning “rectangle,” belong to a male in his thirties. The excavated historical monument is one of more than 1.6 thousand. mustatils found in Saudi Arabia since the 8th decade of the last century. These structures are now covered in sand, but when they were settled, the Arabian desert was covered with lush grass, where elephants roamed and hippos bathed in the occasional lakes, writes “Live Science“.

The builders of the Mustatils were followers of an unknown cult. As the climate changed, the territory they lived in gradually turned into a desert, so people probably gathered in mustatils to sacrifice their animals to the gods they worshiped and, as they believed, to save their land from disastrous changes. Recent excavations in the still unexplored area of ​​Mustatil are described in more detail on March 15. in the magazinePLOS One” in the publication that appeared, provided new information about the mysterious structures and the human communities that visited them, which have sunk into oblivion for a long time.

“Mustatils and the beliefs associated with them are not mentioned in almost any sources. – said archaeologist Melissa Kennedy of the University of Western Australia, who initiated the research, in an interview with the Live Science portal. – Specifically, only 10 mustatils have been excavated, and our research publication is one of the first papers on the subject. Thus, the available knowledge about the traditions of that time remains extremely poor.”

Although the mustatils can look different, they are usually long rectangles with low (1.2 meters high) stone walls. During the excavations of some ruins, it was possible to identify complex internal structures consisting of walls, pillars, etc., which suggested the premises set up in mustatils, where festivals and ritual sacrifice ceremonies were probably celebrated.

Cult worshipers would enter the mustatils from one end and then walk 20 to 600 meters to the other until they reached the stone front platform. In the room inside it, there was a special stone (sometimes of meteorite origin) through which the adherents of the cult communicated with the worshiped gods.

The mustatil excavated by scientists here, located 55 kilometers east of the ancient city of Al Ula, is 140 meters long. Its walls are made of sandstone prevailing in the area. Around the sacred stone inside it, archaeologists found 260 fragments of animal skulls and horns. Almost all of the bone remains found belonged to domestic animals: only one other belonged to domesticated goats, gazelles and small ruminants.

“It is most likely that the animals were brought by humans and slaughtered in a place designated for rituals. They sacrificed the horns and the upper parts of the skull to the deity, and what was left was consumed during the festival held there, says M. Kennedy. – Although it is not entirely clear whether the animals were really slaughtered in Mustatile or in some other place (since the rest of their remains could not be found), taking into account the excellent condition of the horns, and especially the keratin, which usually decomposes quickly, we are inclined to guess that the animal slaughtering ritual probably took place here. In order to preserve it so well, the horns had to be sacrificed immediately after they were separated from the slaughtered animal.”

Archaeologists discovered a stone-lined tomb on the northern side of the front platform of the mustatil. Similar burial chambers were built throughout the Neolithic and Bronze Ages in both Europe and the Middle East. Analysis of the bones found in the grave site showed that a 30-40-year-old man was buried here, who probably suffered from osteoarthritis – a degenerative joint disease, the most common form of arthritis. After examining human and animal bones using radiometric dating, it became clear that a person was buried in Mustatile 400 years after the time when ritual animal sacrifices were carried out right here. This may indicate that the Mustatils were places of repeated pilgrimage.

“Evidence for human burials in the Mustatils continues to grow,” says M. Kennedy, “but all the graves discovered date to later periods, so the age of the human remains and the remains of sacrificed animals do not match. We surmise that the mustatils retained their importance even after they were no longer used for their original purpose. We believe that representatives of later generations buried their dead here, thus expressing rights to those objects and links with the past.”

The purpose of the ceremonies held in Mustatilai has not yet been revealed. Since the discovery of these structures in the desert coincides with the Holocene wet period in Arabia, which lasted from 7000 to 6000 BC. Ave. Cr. and despite occasional droughts that have made it and North Africa a wetter region, scholars are trying to discern a connection between the rituals practiced in the Mustatils and the community’s desire to invoke rain to water the parched land.

Now the proposed hypothesis is tested by determining the distance between Mustatil and prehistoric settlements, rivers and lakes. Ongoing research may reveal links between primitive religious rites and the climate crisis that hit the region in ancient times.