Israel, Samar – Prehistoric ‘Desert Kits’

Desert kites are stone structures with a convergent shape, composed of linear piles of stones. The structures have lengths ranging from less than a hundred metres to several kilometres and heights of less than one metre, even accounting for erosion. There often are gaps in the lines, which were presumably left by the builders or the result of lines formed by alignments of cairns rather than a continuous row. There are a number of different shapes that are referred to as “desert kites”, but in one common structure, the lines form two walls (“antennae”) that converge into an enclosure (“head”) with attached cells. Different regions have different prevalent kite types. Sometimes the existence of these cells is considered essential for a desert kite to be called such.