The pyramid has been suggested to date to the first or second century BC due to similarities with architecture of tower tombs of the late Selucid era at Palmyra in Syria.[1] It was considered by William McClure Thomson to possibly have been of Ancient Greek construction, however the lack of inscriptions puzzled him as he thought the ancient Greeks to be a "scribbling generation".[4][5] Thomson also entertained the notion, along with Charles William Meredith van de Velde that the construction may have been Assyrian.[6] René Dussaud later suggested that although the reliefs resembled the Ishtar Gate, the edifice was likely a monument to the hunting prowess of a member of Syrian royalty from the first century BC.[7]