What is the oldest monument in history? Many of us might think of the pyramids of Egypt or some temples located in Asia, but the truth is that a recent study has revealed that the oldest monument in history is in Syria and that apparently corresponds to something surprising This Syrian monument has been shown to be the oldest in history A recent study published in the journal “Antiquity” would have shown how the White Monument of Tal Banat, in Syria, is not a simple mass grave for fallen enemies, but the monument oldest in the history of mankind, dating back about 4,000 years. With an internal shape very similar to the Pyramid of Djoser, in Saqqara (Egypt), the Syrian monument is a kind of artificial hill recognizable by an obvious peculiarity: its color tends to white. This is due to the materials used during its construction, which probably took place around 2400 BC. In Syria, especially in the northern area, it is easy to find such sites and, to this day, it was believed that the White Monument was just another structure erected by those who lived in Tal Banat in ancient times to celebrate his warlike strength and victories in battle. This theory would have been supported by the discovery, during the last decades, of Mesopotamian inscriptions and texts that refer to these mass graves. In the recent study, however, it is affirmed that the bodies arranged within the structure, after their construction It was precisely the fallen of Tal Banat, those who died in some battle that took place 4000 years ago.The White Monument, therefore, differs from all other funerary buildings of the time both in its architectural form and in its content. According to the researchers, in each step of the structure there are about 30 burials, each of them sealed with a layer of mortar. Following a specific pattern, the preserved individuals were arranged in two halves: in the first, each tomb preserves a pair of bodies wrapped in equine skin; in the second, however, the dead are buried individually with wooden balls, probably used in war with slings. Professor Anne Porter, from the University of Toronto (Canada), remarked that this exceptional discovery could change the perspective with the that, thus far, other sites similar to the White Monument have been studied throughout the Middle East.
