Amazing Göbekli Tepe

It is almost 12,000 years old. Those who visited the site reported unforgettable experience. When I look at the images, curved on the pillars, I cannot avoid the feeling that it was done by a very talented contemporary artist. Not that I have superiority complex over ancient civilizations. Far from it. I think the humanity lost quite a few of great talents in exchange for an easier and care-free life.

Granted, we solved many life threatening problems too, and I am very happy and grateful for that. And yet, looking at these images, I cannot avoid feeling a sense of loss. The artist, who created these images, understood life so deep as if he lived all those thousands of years that separated us. And here is he staying behind my back, waiting to see if I am able to understand what he had attempted to express. This artist is and always will be the contemporary of any generation of humanity.

Location of the site Reconstruction of the site

Bull, fox and crane. By Teomancimit Boars and a hole A fox

To give you an idea how long ago it was built, here is the timeline:
447 BC –> 1,500 years ago -> The Parthenon was started (and completed in the next 15 years).
2550 BC –> 4,500 years ago -> The Great Pyramid of Giza was started (completed in 30 years).
3000 BC –> 5,000 years ago -> Stonehenge was started (completed in 1,500 years).
4000 BC -> 6,000 years ago -> The first ziggurat was built in Mesopotamia
4500 BC –> 6,500 years ago -> Standing stones in Carnac started (completed in 2,500 years).
9130 BC –> 11,130 years ago -> The first round structure at Göbekli Tepe were started.

The time distance from Göbekli Tepe to the first temple (ziggurat) in Mesopotamia is as big as from the first ziggurat to us. The discovery of Göbekli Tepe stretched the history of significant construction back for another 6,000 years. It makes my head spin.

Other amazing facts facts:

– the conventional theory was, so far, that the monument building was a consequence of agriculture and settlement. In Göbekli Tepe they seemed did it backward. They started develop agriculture and settlement in order to support the monument construction. Why they started building it? No good suggestions yet. Mine: the urge to share spiritual beliefs is independent of the need to share material stuff. It seems to me it resides deep in the human nature. By sharing ideas we acquire our sense of belonging to something bigger than each of us. We identify it as the purpose and the meaning of our life. That is what I think. If you think differently, please drop me a message;

– in the ancient village 20 miles from Göbekli Tepe, the first strain of domesticated plants was discovered;

– in the ancient village 60 miles from Göbekli Tepe, the first pigs were domesticated. Also, first domestic sheep, goats and cattle are found in the region;

– the so-called Neolithic Revolution, i.e. the beginning of agriculture and animal husbandry coincides with the beginning of Göbekli Tepe construction;

– after some time, they filled the erected ring and pillars with dirt brought from tens of miles afar. They did it methodically and deliberately during a span of many years. Then they erected a new circle on the top or near the buried one. Why? Any guess? Nobody came up with a good explanation yet.

See more amazing pictures on pinterest page

From wikipedia:
Klaus Schmidt, who is excavating there, engaged in some speculation regarding the belief systems of the groups that created Göbekli Tepe. He assumed shamanic practices and suggested that the T-shaped pillars represent human forms, perhaps ancestors, whereas he saw a fully articulated belief in gods only developing later in Mesopotamia, associated with extensive temples and palaces. This corresponds well with an ancient Sumerian belief that agriculture, animal husbandry, and weaving were brought to mankind from the sacred mountain Ekur. It is also apparent that the animal and other images give no indication of organized violence, i.e. there are no depictions of hunting raids or wounded animals, and the pillar carvings generally ignore game on which the society mainly depended, like deer, in favor of formidable creatures like lions, snakes, spiders, and scorpions.

From wikipedia:
There are no comparable monumental complexes from its time. Nevalı Çori, a Neolithic settlement submerged by the Atatürk Dam since 1992, is 500 years younger. Its T-shaped pillars are considerably smaller, and its shrine was located inside a village. The roughly contemporary architecture at Jericho is devoid of artistic merit or large-scale sculpture, and Çatalhöyük, perhaps the most famous Anatolian Neolithic village, is 2,000 years later.

From wikipedia:
At present Göbekli Tepe raises more questions for archaeology and prehistory than it answers. It remains unknown how a force large enough to construct, augment, and maintain such a substantial complex was mobilized and compensated or fed in the conditions of pre-sedentary society. Scholars cannot interpret the pictograms, and do not know for certain what meaning the animal reliefs had for visitors to the site; the variety of fauna depicted, from lions and boars to birds and insects, makes any single explanation problematic. As there is little or no evidence of habitation, and the animals pictured are mainly predators, the stones may have been intended to stave off evils through some form of magic representation. Alternatively, they could have served as totems. The assumption that the site was strictly cultic in purpose and not inhabited has also been challenged by the suggestion that the structures served as large communal houses, “similar in some ways to the large plank houses of the Northwest Coast of North America with their impressive house posts and totem poles.” The reason the complex was carefully backfilled remains unexplained.

And the last amazing fact: the site has been in continued habitation for over 3000 years, but, so far, no evidence of any conflicts related to that period was found. It seems people lived there in a state of a peaceful bliss.