Who built the massive stone structures scattered across Israel’s Golan Heights?
Known as dolmens and megalithic stone circles, these mysterious constructions were built from enormous volcanic basalt stones—some weighing far more than a person could lift. Yet the people who built them left behind almost no other evidence of their lives.
In this episode, Ran Silberman of ALL ISRAEL NEWS explores the mysterious ancient landscape of the Golan Heights, the biblical region of Bashan, and the story of Og, king of Bashan, whose enormous bed is described in Deuteronomy 3. The mystery deepens at Gilgal Refaim, where tens of thousands of stones form enormous concentric circles around a central stone structure. Was it a burial site? A ceremonial center? Something connected to ancient astronomy? No one knows for certain.
And recently, Israeli scholars have identified dozens more previously unknown stone circles in the Golan Heights.
Who built them? Why did they move so many massive stones? And could these mysterious monuments have anything to do with the biblical Rephaim?
Were there giants? What do you think?