A Brobdingnagian , Bronze Agefortification hold in the Khaybar Oasis in the North Arabian Desert has been discovered by archaeologists . The wall would have once stretched over 14.5 km ( 9 miles ) , making this one of the two largest fence in oases ever unearth in Saudi Arabia .
What remains of the vast bulwark has been dated to between 2250 and 1950 BCE , during which time oases were common in the neighborhood and were inhabited by sedentary populations .
Despite being one of the longest - known fortification from this period , no such walls had ever been identified at Khaybar , aside from a famous Islamic - period fortress in the center of its great wadi ( river valley ) . The researchers consider this walled oasis has gone undetected for so long due to the extreme reworking of the desert landscape over the last four millennia .
Having finally disclose it , a exploit they say “ constitute[d ] a significant scientific challenge ” , the team was able to estimate the fortifications ’ original proportion : approximately 14.5 kilometer long , 1.7 to 2.4 metre ( 5.6 to 7.9 feet ) thick , and 5 meters ( 16 foot ) eminent . However , a petty less than half of their distance survives today .
In their heyday , the mammoth walls would have enclosed a territory of almost 1,100 hectares ( 2,700 Acre ) . Only the fortified city ofTayma , which had walls around 19 kilometers ( 12 miles ) in duration , can rival Khaybar in term of size – the two sites are the largest fence oases in the region .
In identifying Khaybar as an Brobdingnagian walled oasis that belonged to a web of other such bastioned settlements in north - western Arabia , the team has shed some light onhumanoccupation in the area and furthered our agreement of the societal complexity of the pre - Muslim period .
“ Dating from the Late third millenary BCE , the ramparts of Khaybar were probably build by autochthonal populations as they settle down and showily demarcated their oasis territory , ” the investigator write in their new study . “ These ramparts endure for several centuries before being dismantled or replace by more late structures . ”
“ In gain to the discovery of a unique and securely date memorial , the recognition of the Khaybar surround oasis be a essential watershed in the architectural and social inheritance of north Arabia , ” they reason .
At 4,000 years old , the walled oasis of Khaybar is undeniably a senior citizen of bastioned settlement – but for theworld ’s oldest fortress(an astonishing 8,000 years sometime ) , you have to travel east to Siberia .
The study is release in theJournal of Archaeological Science : Reports .
