Archaeologists in Saudi Arabia have discovered ancient human remains buried next to hundreds of
Remains of an adult male, approximately 30 years old.found inside a mustatil (the name comes from the Arabic word meaning rectangle). Mustatils are prehistoric sandstone wall monuments found in northwestern Saudi Arabia. The ruins where the bones were found are one of more than 1,600 mustatils discovered in the country since the 1970s. Now they are mostly immersed in sand. However, these structures were built when the Arabian Desert was a lush grassland where elephants roamed and hippos swam in lakes.
The builders of the Mustatils were members of the unknowncult. Researchers say that as climate change slowly turned the land into a desert, cult members gathered to protect it by sacrificing livestock to unknown gods. New excavations at Mustabil, detailed in a PLOS One magazine article, have revealed more details about the mysterious structures and their visitors.
According to scientists, during the excavations scientists foundcomplex structures within the ruins, including interior walls and columns that give way to central chambers. They may have been intended for feasts and ritual sacrifices.
Annotated image of mustatil excavated by researchers. Image courtesy of Kennedy et al., 2023, PLOS ONE
Believers entered the mustatil from one endand walked from 20 to 600 m or more to another until they reached a platform of rubble called the “head”. The inner chamber contained a beitl, a sacred stone that cult members used to communicate with their gods.
Mustatil, excavated by researchers, is located55 km east of the ancient city of Al-Ula. The length of the cult monument is 140 m and it was built from local sandstone. Beitl is a large vertical stone around which researchers discovered 260 fragments of animal skulls and horns. They mainly belong to livestock, although scientists have found that some fragments belonged to domestic goats, gazelles and small ruminants.
Directly north of the head of the mustatilresearchers have discovered a cist, a type of burial chamber built during the Neolithic and Bronze Ages in Europe and the Middle East. Analysis of buried bones showed that he was between 30 and 40 years old when he died. He had osteoarthritis, a degenerative joint disease that is the most common form of arthritis. Radiocarbon dating of the bones showed the man was buried 400 years after the animals were slaughtered.
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