Archaeologists have discovered a forgotten city hidden in an oasis in the Saudi Arabian desert, built by an advanced society 4,000 years ago.
The fortified city, called al-Natah, was home to at least 500 people who were once nomads but built at least 50 multistory buildings in 2400 BCE.
The ancient civilization built giant tombs to store their remains and metal weapons such as axes and daggers, which experts say showed they were “advanced”.
Al-Natah was divided into a residential area, a decision-making zone and a cemetery, connected by small streets and long trade networks.
Ceramics were also found among the dwellings, suggesting an egalitarian society that prioritized the city’s survival.
This type of society is one where there is no social hierarchy and every person is considered equal regardless of gender, race, class or wealth.
The 269,000 square meter settlement was hidden in the walled desert of Khaybar on the Arabian Peninsula.
While the city was being built, other areas along the Mediterranean from modern-day Syria to Jordan were flourishing, but the oasis was previously thought of as a barren wasteland filled with tombs and nomads.
Researchers created a 3D rendering of what al-Natah would have looked like (pictured). It had a cemetery at its center, surrounded by residents’ residences, and a 13.9-mile wall that encircled the city
The site of Al-Natah in the Khaybar Oasis (pictured) was discovered using satellite imagery from above.
The earliest known city in human history was called Çatalhöyük, a settlement of about 10,000 inhabitants that existed in present-day Turkey from 7400 to 5200 BCE.
But the researchers found that, unlike earlier cities, the ancient al-Natah people had built a process of “slow urbanism,” in which small organized communities gradually adapted to life in the desert.
Nomads roamed northwestern Arabia from the beginning of the first millennium BC, including the Bedouin tribe, who hunted, traded, and raided villages for supplies.
They relied on their herds of goats, sheep, and camels for food, cheese, milk, and other necessities, and formed family groups called clans that protected members from other nomadic tribes.
Archaeologists from France’s National Center for Scientific Research in Paris said local nomads had decided to settle in a new community in the early Bronze Age to protect themselves from attacks.
The group said al-Natah had been overlooked for so long because of the black volcanic rock – basalt bedrock – that covers the area.
The basalt had hidden it to the extent that it “protected the site from illegal excavations,” Guillaume Charloux, a French archaeologist and lead author of the study, told AFP.
Al-Natah was first discovered 15 years ago when scientists surveyed the site from above using satellites, which revealed paths and the foundations of houses.
They created a 3D representation of what the city looked like 4,000 years ago and said that while they only identified 50 dwellings, many of them may have been demolished over the millennia.
This suggests that the actual number could be 55-70 houses.
According to the study, the thickness and configuration of the structures showed that most were two or three stories high and all had foundations that were likely used as storage or crawl spaces.
“This type of building resembles traditional Arab tower houses, especially the much later ones in the Najd region,” says the study published in the journal PLOS.
A map of the Al-Natah area (pictured) shows where the ancient inhabitant’s dwellings, tombs and cemetery are located within the city
There were at least 50 apartments in the Al-Natah area, but according to researchers, the real number could be between 55 and 70. Pictured: an apartment facing north (left) and northwest (right) in the al-Natah area
A partition wall separated the dwellings from the cemetery, which was filled with “stepped tower tombs” – a tall, circular tomb with an outer wall and an inner burial chamber lined with stone pillars.
These graves suggested that the inhabitants carried out elaborate burial practices, while the weapons found in the burial sites indicated that the people had a clear knowledge of metalworking.
The discovery of weapons, combined with a fortified wall that stretched 8.9 miles around the city, showed that the people created a way to defend themselves against possible attacks, further confirming their early urban life.
The heavily populated area and the wall indicated that the inhabitants laid the foundation for the “incense route”, which involved the trade of spices, frankincense and myrrh from southern Arabia to the Mediterranean.
Several wells and water sources were identified at the site, one of which was located at the bottom of a nearby rock, which would have provided the residents with a good water supply.
The findings are “proof that these ramparts are organized around the habitat,” Charloux told AFP.
The city was abandoned between 1500 and 1300 BC for unknown reasons, but researchers speculate that they could have left the area to return to a nomadic lifestyle due to disease or a deteriorating climate.