Khatt Shebib: The Mysterious Wall in Jordan

In 1948 Sir Alec Kirkbride was a British diplomat living in Jordan who first noticed the structure from an airplane. He also saw a strange stone structure. It was the Khatt Shebib wall. During a recent study, scientists found that the length of the wall, which stretches from north-east to south-west, is 106 km, according to Live Science. Its total length includes its branches and parallel, sessions its total length is about 150 km. The ruins are currently being constructed. Scientists claim that the wall was initially small. Its height was just over a meter and its width about half a mile.

Khatt Shebib

It could have been used as a line of demarcation between desert and areas where farming was possible. In a mysterious setting, ancient towers can be seen. There are hundreds of tiny towers measuring between two and four meters in size along the wall.

Kennedy believes that they were constructed after the wall was built. These towers could have had many uses. Some towers may have been refuges, a safe place to stay overnight. Some may have served as watch posts. Some, perhaps, were places in which hunters could hide until browsing fauna was close enough to try and bring down," Kennedy told Live Science. Kennedy believes that they were not used for military purposes. Kennedy thinks the small towers that line the wall are more like shelters from the sandstorms that were provided for hunters in the deep desert. They could also have been used for food storage. All of these possibilities are speculations, he admits. It is difficult to determine who built the wall, as it was constructed of fieldstones. It was an enormous effort. Archaeologists believe that even though the wall was just one meter tall, the task of gathering heavy stones and building them into a wall was difficult.

First Photo By Aerial Photographic Archive for Archaeology in the Middle East

Photo By Aerial Photographic Archive for Archaeology in the Middle East

Ancient wall in Jordan

Kennedy stated that the scientists' only source of dating information is pottery from the towers and other locations along the wall. The pottery that has been dated suggests that the wall was built sometime during the Nabataean (312 B.C.-A.D.). Kennedy stated that the wall was likely built sometime between the Nabataean period (312 B.C.-A.D.) and Umayyad periods (A.D. 661 - 750).

Specialists also believe the wall was not defensive. One theory is that the Hutt Shebib was used as a boundary between ancient farmers and nomadic tribes to cultivate land. It is not clear what the wall was used for.