 According to Heritage Daily, archaeologists have identified a 4,000 year old memorial monument at the site of Banat, Bazi and Siria that closely resembles the ancient steppe pyramid in Egypt at Sikara, known as the White Monument due to the white sheen given by the materials used in its construction. The artificial mound was first excavated by archaeologists several decades ago, but only now a new study has determined that the monument was added around 2400 BC, when an earlier mound was modified with a series of horizontal steps, each containing at least 30 burials sealed in layers of plaster. An ancient Mesopotamian text do reference war memorials where the corpses of enemies are piled up in mass, although none of these places have ever been discovered. However, the White Monument at Tel Banat appears to be a memorial to the settlement's dead, rather than to bury enemies fallen in conflict. Professor Anne Porter from the University of Toronto says about it when she says, These findings not only challenged some of the excavator's assumptions, but also some traditional underpinnings of Near Eastern Archaeology. This place would have looked much like the steppe pyramid at Sikara and was about the same size, but it was made of dirt not stone. The burials at the White Monument were carefully placed into a ritual setting alongside their military gear. Sometimes alongside slingers pellets and the skins of conga, a donkey-like equid breed often depicted pulling chariots, we recognised that there was a distinct pattern in the burials. Pairs of bodies with skins of equids in one part of the monument and single individuals with earthen pellets in the other. Professor Porter suggested that the pairs buried with conga skins may have been chariot teams. Additionally, they discovered it was not a mass grave of those who fell in battle, but the deceased were deliberately reburied in the monument at later point. And this decision to carefully reburied the dead, likely with their military equipment and a special addition to an existing monument, provides strong evidence that this was an effort by a community to celebrate their warriors. The results of this study was published in the journal Antiquity, of which we will link below, but would you guys think about this one anyway? Comments below and as always, thank you for watching.