Blueprints engraved in stone from Saudi Arabia and Jordan could be the world’s oldest
An aerial view of a desert kite in the Jebel az-Zilliyat region of Saudi Arabia. The kite dates back to the Stone Age and was a kind of hunting trap. O. Barge, CNRS An international team of archaeologists digging in Saudi Arabia and Jordan reportedly found the world’s oldest architectural plans. The findings were published in a study May 17 in the journal PLOS ONE and includes precise engravings that date back between 7,000 and 8,000 years ago. [Related: Details of life in Bronze Age Mycenae could lie at the bottom of a well.] These ancient blueprints depict large structures used to trap and funnel animals for slaughter into enclosures called kites. First spotted by aviators in the 1920s, the contraptions are called “kites” because of the shape they form. The converging walls...