Unlocking the Mystery of Rogem Hiri

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I suspect that some BAR readers have become hooked, as I have, on the mysterious site in the Golan known as Rogem Hiri (Rujm el-Hiri in Arabic). In the cover story of BAR 18:04 (see “Mystery Circles,”), Dr. Yonathan Mizrachi speculated that these immense concentric stone circles, constructed in the Early Bronze Age (3150–2200 B.C.E.), were used as a ceremonial site and that later, in the Late Bronze Age (1550–1200 B.C.E.), a burial cairn was built in the center.

In the BAR 19:01 (see Queries & Comments), Professor Moshe Kochavi takes a somewhat different view: He says that the circles and the burial site in the center were constructed at the same time (in the Early Bronze Age) and that the site, rather than having a ceremonial or cultic installation, was the burial site of a great chieftain.

Kochavi served as director of the entire Land of Geshur Project of which the excavation of Rogem Hiri was a part. Mizrachi directed the research project at Rogem Hiri and wrote his doctoral dissertation on the site. For ten years, I have intimately studied the site (and associated megalithic structures in the Levant) and have written widely on the subject in technical journals; in addition, I prepared the map inof Mizrachi’s article (as reflected in the credits), and, like Kochavi and Mizrachi, participated in the excavation of the site.

During the excavations, we each began to develop our own viewpoint and had many spirited discussions 058in a friendly and open atmosphere. On one point I agree with Kochavi, although on most points I agree with Mizrachi—which results in what I believe is essentially a third position.

I agree with Kochavi that the concentric circles and the tomb were initially built together in the Early Bronze Age to form the burial site of a “Great Man,” as Kochavi calls him. However, burial sites of great men often evolve into ceremonial or cult sites—places where important community decisions are made. This happened often in the Near East, and it is the key to understanding the entire megalithic phenomenon in Mediterranean countries, and even in Western Europe.^a The burial site or cenotaph of a real or mythological forefather assumed a larger, often transcendental importance for the Great Man’s descendants. That is what I believe happened at Rogem Hiri.

Kochavi concludes that Rogem Hiri was initially “just a mammoth Early Bronze Age dolmen.” Here I think he is wrong. The tomb found in the center of the complex is not a dolmen. A dolmen consists of two or more vertical slabs of stones with one or more horizontal slabs on top forming a rectangular burial space. Dolmens in the Levant were covered by tumuli or cairns, that is, mounds of earth or stones. Over time, the stone cairn often dispersed about the dolmen. In suggesting that dolmens were “sometimes surrounded by stone circles” (in this way he draws a parallel to Rogem Hiri), Kochavi mistakenly identifies as stone circles the remains of the cairns that once covered the dolmens.¹

I agree with Mizrachi that the present burial chamber was built in the Late Bronze Age. (Kochavi proposes that the Early Bronze Age burial cairn was reused in the Late Bronze Age.) At Rogem Hiri, the method of construction and other hints in the internal structure of the cairn indicate that the tomb was built over a preexisting structure. Further excavation will, I believe, bring to light a pre-existing burial chamber from the Early Bronze Age.

Kochavi also understands the initial construction of the complex as part of the “great Early Bronze civilization.” Here too I think he errs: The Early Bronze culture was hardly a civilization, at least if a civilization requires civitas, that is, cities. During the Early Bronze Age, there were no urban centers in the southern Levant. A city requires at least two of the following three conditions: (1) monumental architecture, (2) written records and (3) at least 5,000 inhabitants. None of the well-known Early Bronze sites—Arad, Ai, Tell el-Far’ah (North)—meets the requirements of a city.

The enclosures that dot the landscape of the Golan and other parts of the Levant at the end of Early Bronze I (3150–2850 B.C.E.) are fortified villages, typical in a warlike tribal society. The Laviah enclosure excavated by Kochavi as part of the Land of Geshur Project^b represents a fine example. The protective walls that surrounded the larger villages do not reflect urban culture, but indicate troubled times and probably tribal warfare.

True cities appear only in Early Bronze IIIB (2500–2400 B.C.E.), at such sites as Tel Yarmuth, 19 miles west of Jerusalem, with its monumental palace.

In the Golan, there has never been a real city, not even in the Late Roman/Byzantine period when it was most densely inhabited and abounded in villages. A city needs an agricultural hinterland to supply it with food and needs to be located near important avenues of communication. The basaltic soil of the Golan, particularly in the vicinity of Rogem Hiri, is utterly unsuitable for agriculture. The only subsistence economy that can flourish here is animal husbandry. Even today, the vicinity of Rogem Hiri is cattle country. The only people who ever lived here in homeostatic equilibrium with the environment over a long period were pastoral nomads. They interacted in various ways with the sedentary population in the valleys and in parts of the country where agriculture was possible. The pastoralists, living in close contact with the sedentary population, may have dominated the agriculturalists who probably built the dolmens and Rogem Hiri for this ruling class of nomadic descent. Pastoral nomads, who hardly built anything by themselves, were the driving force behind many cultural and historical developments (for example, the Mongols in China, the Scythians in India and Iran, the Tuareg in Africa, and so forth).

The social structure of pastoral nomadic societies of the ancient Near East was highly complex and variable, but a few components were common to all. One was the need for a central sanctuary where all the members of a tribe met at regular intervals. Settling disputes, exchanging information and goods, making marriage arrangements and, sometimes, electing or confirming leaders were all activities that were conducted at a central sanctuary, together with rituals and ceremonies without which a tribal society would fall apart.

Many of these gatherings took place near a time-honored burial place, others at sites where some mythological events took place or near certain monuments that were “concrete and abiding symbols of community strength and solidarity.”²

The complicated pattern of access to Rogem Hiri and the division of space within the monument, as well as its setting in the landscape and the lack of any other structures in the immediate vicinity—all lead to the unavoidable conclusion that Rogem Hiri was a sanctuary and a cult site (although not a temple or a shrine for a specific deity; temples were houses for the gods, and their construction followed the architectural traditions of the specific society that built them, usually within a settlement).

The various approaches to Rogem Hiri, and the control of spiral movement within it, can be compared with numerous other sites, in a wide variety of 059cultures, that serve a similar purpose to the one I am suggesting here. They can be found in North Africa and central Asia at various periods—from the modest tombs en trou de serrure (keyhole tombs) of Algiers to the royal mausoleum of Koj-Krylgan-Kala near Aral Lake in Chwaresmia (now called Uzbekistan). The closest parallel, however, is the Ka’abah of Mecca, the holiest site of Islam, which every Muslim strives to visit during a pilgrimage (the haj) at least once in a lifetime. The Ka’abah is not a mosque but a ceremonial center and definitely a cult site. The rituals performed by the pilgrims are very ancient, older than the prophet Muhammed; their origin is lost in the prehistoric past of the pastoral nomadic tribes of northwestern Arabia. The climax of the pilgrimage ceremony is the circumambulation in ever narrower circles around the focal structure hidden under black veils, where the devout finally touch the sacred black stone that fell from heaven.

On a more modest scale, similar rituals are found among many nomadic societies in the past. Some of these rituals partially survive in our own day: the humble walking around the tombs of sheiks in Israel or the haqafot (a ritual walk that includes prayer) of North African Jews around the tombs of famous rabbis.³ Similar rites almost certainly took place within the walls of Rogem Hiri.

I would emphasize that I do not see a direct cultural relation between the Ka’abah or the other sites I mention for the sake of illustration. I do, however, urge the reader not to underestimate the strength of cultural convergence; totally unrelated societies, separated in time or space, but on the same level of cultural development, often find similar solutions to similar problems. When people live under the same socioeconomic conditions, such as the pastoralists of the Near Eastern desert fringes, their spiritual world will be quite similar, resulting in identical rites and nearly identical material expression. Rogem Hiri, I believe, is the material expression of the Early Bronze Age tribes of the southern Golan who adhered to religious traditions largely inherited from and influenced by pastoral nomads. It provided the housing for the ceremonial and cultic expression I have described.

I suspect that some BAR readers have become hooked, as I have, on the mysterious site in the Golan known as Rogem Hiri (Rujm el-Hiri in Arabic). In the cover story of BAR 18:04 (see “Mystery Circles,”), Dr. Yonathan Mizrachi speculated that these immense concentric stone circles, constructed in the Early Bronze Age (3150–2200 B.C.E.), were used as a ceremonial site and that later, in the Late Bronze Age (1550–1200 B.C.E.), a burial cairn was built in the center. In the BAR 19:01 (see Queries & Comments), Professor Moshe Kochavi takes a somewhat different view: He says that the […]