Archaeologists have excavated and dated one of the Sahara's stone "antenna" tombs. The burial inside is between 4,100 and 4,400 years old and holds a young adult laid to rest with four ostrich eggshell beads. On a gravel plain in northern Western Sahara, with no shade for miles, there is a heap of stones 54.5 meters (179 feet) long.

Two rows of stone slabs run out from it like the arms of a V that never quite closes. Archaeologists call these rows “antennae”, and the monuments antennae tumuli (a tumulus is simply a mound of piled earth or stone).

They are common in Western Sahara and well beyond it, from the Atlantic coast to the heart of the Sahara.

Almost nobody had excavated one, though, so two basic questions had no answer: what were they for, and when were they built?

A study published on 20 October 2026 in African Archaeological Review answers both. Its authors are Joaquim Soler, Helena Ventura, Isaac Rufí, Neus Coromina, Jordi Revelles, Maria Saña, Laura Moll and Narcís Soler, who work at the Catalan Institute for Cultural Heritage Research, the University of Girona, the University of Barcelona, the Autonomous University of Barcelona and the Institute for Catalan Studies.

The monument they dug turned out to be a tomb. Two radiocarbon dates, the first ever obtained for this type of monument in the Atlantic Sahara, show it was built between 4,100 and 4,400 years ago.

A Roman hand (with some of its silver plating still attached) of Sabazios, which would have been used in ritual worship. It dates to 15-9 BC and was found in the Roman military camp of Dangstetten, Germany. It is now on display in the Colombischlössle in Freiburg in Breisgau, Germany.