The memorial is known as the White Monument due to the white sheen it was given by the materials used to build it. It was first excavated several years ago and has now been the focus of a new study to determine the purpose for which it was built.
The White Monument is 22 meters in height and 100 meters in diameter. The white sheen over it is caused by erosion washing down the sides of the monument, which were constructed using gypsum and marl, both calcium and carbon rich materials.
While texts dating back to the third century BCE have long suggested that burial mounds made up of enemy corpses were a Mesopotamian symbol of victory, no such examples have been discovered to date, and archeologists originally thought that this may be one such monument.
However, further research revealed that the monument, built above layers of carefully buried adult males, may have been a memorial to the community's dead, rather than a symbol of victory over the enemy."These findings not only challenged some of the excavators’ assumptions, but also some traditional underpinnings of Near Eastern archaeology," said Professor Anne Porter from the University of Toronto.
The monument, located at the site of Banat-Bazi in Syria, resembles the Ancient Egyptian Stepped Pyramid of Saqqara which was around the same size but made of dirt instead of stone.
The dead appear to have been buried in a specific pattern and according to ritual, research suggests. Each of the dead was buried alongside his military gear, jewelry, and sometimes with the skins of a kunga, a donkey-like animal often depicted pulling chariots. Some of the corpses were buried in pairs and some alone. According to Porter, the pairs buried with kunga skins may have been chariot teams.
While at first it was thought to be a simple mass grave, excavations revealed that the bodies had been deliberately and intentionally buried, and this decision pointed to the monument having been erected by the surviving members of the communities that they had died fighting for.