Gobekli Tepe the world's first temple

Gobekli Tepe :the world's first temple

It is likely the megaliths at the Neolithic site of Göbekli Tepe in Turkey once supported roofs. Archaeologists have found floors constructed of burnt lime and clay within the stone circles

At first glance, the fox on the surface of the limestone pillar appears to be a trick of the bright sunlight. But as I move closer to the large, T-shaped megalith, I find it is carved with an improbable menagerie. A bull and a crane join the fox in an animal parade etched across the surface of the pillar, one of dozens erected by early Neolithic people at Göbekli Tepe in southeastern Turkey. The press here is fond of calling the site "the Turkish Stonehenge," but the comparison hardly does justice to this 25-acre arrangement of at least seven stone circles. The first structures at Göbekli Tepe were built as early as 10,000 B.C., predating their famous British counterpart by about 7,000 years.

The oldest man-made place of worship yet discovered, Göbekli Tepe is "one of the most important monuments in the world," says Hassan Karabulut, associate curator of the nearby Urfa Museum. He and archaeologist Zerrin Ekdogan of the Turkish Ministry of Culture guide me around the site. Their enthusiasm for the ancient temple is palpable.

By the time of my visit in late summer, the excavation team lead by Klaus Schmidt of the German Archaeological Institute has wrapped up work for the season. But there is still plenty to see, including three excavated circles now protected by a large metal shelter. The megaliths, which may have once supported roofs, are about nine feet tall.

Göbekli Tepe's circles range from 30 to 100 feet in diameter and are surrounded by rectangular stone walls about six feet high. Many of the pillars are carved with elaborate animal figure reliefs. In addition to bulls, foxes, and cranes, representations of lions, ducks, scorpions, ants, spiders, and snakes appear on the pillars. Freestanding sculptures depicting the animals have also been found within the circles. During the most recent excavation season, archaeologists uncovered a statue of a human and sculptures of a vulture's head and a boar.

As we walk around the recently excavated pillars, the site seems at once familiar and exotic. I have seen stone circles before, but none like these.

        

                

Left to right: T-shaped pillars at Göbekli Tepe depict two boars accompanied by ostrich-like birds, a crocodile-like creature, and vultures flying above a scorpion. (Haldun Aydingün)

Excavations have revealed that Göbekli Tepe was constructed in two stages. The oldest structures belong to what archaeologists call the early Pre-Pottery Neolithic A period, which ended around 9000 B.C. Strangely enough, the later remains, which date to the Pre-Pottery Neolithic B period, or about 8000 B.C., are less elaborate. The earliest levels contain most of the T-shaped pillars and animal sculptures.

Archaeologist Klaus Schmidt downplays extravagant spiritual interpretations of Göbekli Tepe, such as the idea, made popular in the press, that the site is the inspiration for the Biblical Garden of Eden. But he does agree that it was a sanctuary of profound significance in the Neolithic world. He sees it as a key site in understanding the transition from hunting and gathering to agriculture, and from tribal to regional religion.

Schmidt and his colleagues estimate that at least 500 people were required to hew the 10- to 50-ton stone pillars from local quarries, move them from as far as a quarter-mile away, and erect them. How did Stone Age people achieve the level of organization necessary to do this? Hauptmann speculates that an elite class of religious leaders supervised the work and later controlled the rituals that took place at the site. If so, this would be the oldest known evidence for a priestly caste--much earlier than when social distinctions became evident at other Near Eastern sites.

Before the discovery of Göbekli Tepe, archaeologists believed that societies in the early Neolithic were organized into small bands of hunter-gatherers and that the first complex religious practices were developed by groups that had already mastered agriculture. Scholars thought that the earliest monumental architecture was possible only after agriculture provided Neolithic people with food surpluses, freeing them from a constant focus on day-to-day survival. A site of unbelievable artistry and intricate detail, Göbekli Tepe has turned this theory on its head.

Schmidt believes the people who created these massive and enigmatic structures came from great distances. It seems certain that once pilgrims reached Göbekli Tepe, they made animal sacrifices. Schmidt and his team have found the bones of wild animals, including gazelles, red deer, boars, goats, sheep, and oxen, plus a dozen different bird species, such as vultures and ducks, scattered around the site. Most of these animals are depicted in the sculptures and reliefs at the site.

There is still much that we don't understand about religious practices at Göbekli Tepe, Schmidt cautions. But broadly speaking, the animal images "probably illustrate stories of hunter-gatherer religion and beliefs," he says, "though we don't know at the moment." The sculptors of Göbekli Tepe may have simply wanted to depict the animals they saw, or perhaps create symbolic representations of the animals to use in rituals to ensure hunting success.

Schmidt has another theory about how Göbekli Tepe became a sacred place. Though he has yet to find them, he believes that the first stone circles on the hill of the navel marked graves of important people. Hauptmann's team discovered graves at Nevali Cori, and Schmidt is reasonably confident that burials lie somewhere in the earliest layers of Göbekli Tepe. This leads him to suspect the pillars represent human beings and that the cult practices at this site may initially have focused on some sort of ancestor worship. The T-shaped pillars, he points out, look like human bodies with the upper part of the "T" resembling a head in profile. Once, Schmidt says, they stood on the hillside "like a meeting of stone beings."

 petro glyphs

A proper and thorough study should work from a map of stars that shows them as they appeared 11,000 years BP in order to lend greater accuracy.  In the analysis of the rock depictions that have been uncovered, the first will be referred to as the “Vulture and Scorpion” stone, the second “Boar and Birds” stone, the "Goat and Horse" stone, the"Great Lion", the "Great Fox", the "Lesser Fox", the "Cow, Fox, and Crane" stone.

Vulture and Scorpion Stone

Figure 1.

Vulture and Scorpion stone compared to modern Star Map

The first interesting form is the scorpion, which might first be thought to represent is known as Scorpius, but this does not appear to be the case.  This is due to the presence of the three birds to the middle right (A, B, C), these three most clearly correspond to the “Summer Triangle” stars, the three birds, one represented by each star: Cygnus, Aquila (aka Vultur volans), and Vultur cadens (Lyra).  The shape of the Aquila constellations holds the same general appearance as bird A, the angle of the Cygnus stars matches the shape of the body of bird B, with the feet angling off in the same direction as the neck of the Cygnus constellation.  Bird C corresponds to the star Vega and perhaps some other stars taken together.

Thus the bird D with wings rising upwards matches the shape of the constellation Pegasus taking some Andromeda stars to form the upward wings and another star of Pegasus defining the legs angled off to the right.  The head is drawn together from a bunch of lesser stars.  Notice that the two stars within the head correspond to the two eyes in the drawing.

Running underneath these two major forms is a division line, which might crudely represent either the Ecliptic or the Celestial Equator, or might simply appear in coincidence.  Beneath this dividing line is the scorpion E, which corresponds to no specific constellation, but some of the stars from Aquarius and a few others.  The bird head F beneath the scorpion also corresponds to a “hook” of stars represented mostly by Piscis Austrinus.  To the left of the scorpion is another hook that combines some stars from Aquarius along with the loop of stars from Pisces.  Some of the stars in the lower loop of Aquarius and Sculptor appear to represent the partial head and limbs of a boar H.

The bones I above all the figures is a backbone and thus would most clearly be a representation and concept of the Milky Way, but the actual course of the path of the Milky Way more closely follows the zigzag pattern M that runs above and beneath the actual bones of the backbone, which itself might indicate the “backbone of night” idea was metaphorical (although at one time might have been the Milky Way itself).  The animal J is most probably a squirrel, which would be representing the approximate position and orientation of Cassiopeia.  (The Cassiopeia constellation was known among the Norse as the squirrel Ratatosk, but they don't appear to be related.)  The other two small figures located on either side of J within the backbone spaces represent other star formations: the bent figure on the left L is the constellation Perseus, the upside-down figure to the right N would be the constellation Hercules.

The object that poses the greatest difficulty is the circle K located right above the vulture D’s left wing.  It does not clearly correspond to any fixed star on a current star map, and might represent another object such as the full Moon or a supernova.  A supernova is possible, given the concentration of stars along the Milky Way would clearly increase the odds of a bright star at that location.  Further investigation would be required to locate the remains of such a supernova at that location.

Figure 8.

The Great Fox and Lesser Fox stones compared to modern star map

 It must be remembered that there is no reason to believe that the artists of Gobekli Tepe were recreating their depictions based upon an entirely accurate (apparent) spacing between the stars, nor to think that these were not derived from a longer tradition of depictions.  (This at least is more feasable than to presume that it is the result of star motion between 9000 BC and today.)  It seems clear enough that those who created the structure were well aware that their figures represented constellations.

Cow, Fox and Crane Stone

This stone, shown in Figure 9, shows what appears to be a crane below a fox with a cow above.  Both the crane and the fox can be found within another region of the night sky appearing the same as the constellation Scorpius.  The shape of the crane matches perfectly from Antares as the eye down to Shaula.  The upper part of the constellation are the stars that make up the front of the fox.

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