Wheel of Giants: Prehistoric Rujm el-Hiri Puzzles Archaeologists

Sitting in plain sight but unnoticed for centuries, Rujm el-Hiri – an unusual megalith near the Sea of Galilee – has stumped experts. An ancient monument comprised of enormous stone circles dating to the Early Bronze Age remains a mystery to this day. No one knows who created the stone rings in the form of a wheel, nor why.

Livestock grazing nearby reveals scale of enormous stone rings on the plains of the Golan Heights. (CC BY-SA 3.0)

Pattern Within Giant Stone Circles Revealed From the Air

The impressive ancient ruins, located in the Golan Heights (a contested region claimed by both Israel and Syria) are a wheel-like design of enormous piled rocks—an estimated 40,000 tons of black basalt—stacked into at least five concentric rings, with a central burial cairn at its center, according to news website Haaretz.