April 19, 2009

The mysterious structure of Gilgal Refaim

Gilgal Refaim is a stone circle and ancient megalithic monument in the Golan Heights (Israel), 16 kilometers east of the eastern coast of the Sea of Galilee, in the middle of a large plateau covered with hundreds of dolmens.
In Hebrew the site is called “Wheel of Refaim” because, according to the Tanakh, the ancient people who lived in what is now Golan were actually giants that were called “Rephaites”. The term “Galgal” means wheel, and was given due to the site’s circular shape. The structure is supposed to be the grave of the last king of the giants.
The complex consists of more than 42,000 basalt rocks, arranged in circles. In the center is a mound 5-6 meters tall, from which protrude several layers of stone walls. Some of the walls form complete circles, and others incomplete. The outermost wall has a circumference of close to half a kilometer, and a diameter of more than 150 meters. The site was probably built during the Copper Age, and is estimated to be about 5,000 years old. At the center of the circles is a cairn, an irregular heap of stones. It is 20-25 m. in diameter and preserved to a height of 6 m. The cairn consists of a central mound of stones surrounded by a lower belt, which gives it the appearance of a stepped, truncated cone. A geophysical survey using Ground Penetrating Radar (GPR) revealed the pile of stones to be hollow. A built burial chamber, with a narrow corridor leading to it, was discovered there. The chamber is round, roughly 2 m. in diameter, built of large stone plates arranged on top of each other, but slightly slanting inwards. It was covered by two massive slabs of basalt, each weighing over 5.5 tons, which created a semi-corbelled dome over the burial chamber. In the site’s center, inside the Dolman, researchers found a secret ancient tomb, filled with jewelry and other expensive objects. The tomb was dated to the end of the second millennium B.C. The structure itself predates the tomb, and thus the people who buried the individual there are not the site’s original builders.
There’s a theory that states that Gilgal Refaim was an astronomical observatory, a sort of Middle Eastern Stonehenge. Other theories states the site was used as a calendar. At the times of the two equinoxes, the sun’s rays would pass between two rocks, 2m in height, 5m in width, at the eastern edge of the compound. This way, they could know when the first rains would come, and determine the right time to sow or reap their crops. The theory that it was built to be a tomb it’s completely false, as the tomb found there is 1,000 years newer than the construction itself.
Who built it, why did they built it, and most importantly how did they built it is still unknown to mankind…
Gilgal Refaim is currently inside an IDF training ground, but it can be visited freely in the weekend, when there is no risk of military activity in the area. As a result of New Age movements, advocating a return to nature, every year a group of “New Agers” gathers at the site on the summer solstice, and on the equinox, to view the first rays of the sun shine though the rocks. The site can currently be viewed on Google Earth with its coordinates: 32° 54′ 31.34″ N, 35° 48′ 2.54″ E

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