Desert Kites and Stone Circles of the Syrian Desert in Satellite Images

An arid land, known as the Syrian Desert, is covering a large part of the Middle East. This harsh environment is characterized by huge lava fields, the “harraat”. If we observe them from space, we discover that they are crossed by some stone structures, the “desert kites”, which were the Neolithic traps for the game. Several stone circles are visible too, as many Stonehenges dispersed in the desert landscape. Like the famous English site, some of them could have been used as ancient observatories. We can analyze their orientations with sunrise and sunset directions using a freely available software which works on the Google Maps.