The classic desert kites that gave these formations their name are found in an area that used to have the beautiful name "Levant". It stretches from southeastern Turkey, through Syria and Jordan, into the north of Saudi Arabia. Some of the game traps have diameters between 180 and 250 metres and their guiding fences often stretch for kilometres into the countryside, but there are much smaller ones as well. Judging by the large number of desert kites that are still visible, there must once have been an abundance of game here that is almost unimaginable today.
School for desert kite construction?
I found three strangely small desert kites in two places in the Jordanian Mafraq, in the Ruwaished area. With diameters of 15 to 20 metres, they are only around a tenth of the size of a normal desert kite and were therefore hardly suitable for hunting, except of mice or rabbits. Are these perhaps 1:10 scale models that were used to teach kite construction or to plan kites before they were built? Or were the helpers trained on these models on how to proceed during hunting? I have no idea and would be happy to hear from anyone who knows anything about these miniature kites.
Images courtesy of Google Earth™
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