An enormous ceremonial platform which could be more than 2,000-years-old has been discovered at the ancient city of Petra in Jordan.
Satellite imagery and drone photography was used to reveal the monument, which is buried under the sand and measures 184x161ft – roughly the length and twice the breadth of an Olympic swimming pool.
“Petra is an outstanding site to test new survey technologies,” say archaeologists Sarah Parcak and Christopher Tuttle in a report titled ‘Hiding in Plain Sight’.
“Even after two centuries of fieldwork in Petra and its environs, new discoveries and identifications of monumental structures continue to be made.”
Ms Parcak and Mr Tuttle studied aerial images to distinguish details of the structure’s past glory, such as a huge staircase descending to the east and a wall of columns on one side.
And the oldest pottery found scattered around the site suggests the structure could be more than 2,150-years-old.
The monument is less than a kilometre south of the main city in south-west Jordan, which was named one of the seven new wonders of the world in 2007.
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