Ammon News - AMMONNEWS - Some 50 columns made of sandstone, sculptured in the Qarra district, in the northern al-Jawf province, has been called by residents of the area the “manly” sculptures because of their statures.

The local dialect of the area’s residents refers to a group of men as “Rajajeel,” and that’s what they call the statues.

A lot of speculation have surrounded the sculptures. Some said they acted as road signs, while others speculated they were used for astronomy and its sciences.

Some said they belonged to temples and perhaps used for offerings to the gods, given that next to their location, a site of what is considered the oldest settlement in the Asian continent has been discovered, dating back to a more than a million and 250 thousand years.

Professor Abdulaziz al-Ghazi, a Saudi archeologist and head of the Saudi Archeology Convention, told Al Arabiya English that Saudi Arabia is full of columns scattered in various locations, in areas that are well-known to archeologists, most of them are evidence of burial and funerary sites.

He said the “Rajajeel” statues in Sakaka, Al Jawf, has been discovered through the works of a German archeologist had found mortal remains.

Al-Ghazi stressed that the pillars of Rajajil or stone columns located in different locations inside Saudi Arabia, were all found to be burial sites, adding that studies and excavations support this opinion.

“I have visited all the columns erected in Saudi Arabia in more than 16 locations, except those amid ruins of statues in Tabuk, but they will not deviate from this rule, which was formulated based on studies and archaeological excavations.”