Göbekli Tepe in brief
Göbekli Tepe (“Potbelly Hill” in Turkish) is a low hill near the city of Şanlıurfa in southeastern Turkey. Under its mound, excavators have found several circular and oval enclosures made of huge T-shaped stone pillars, some carved with animals. The structures date to about 9500 to 8000 BC, the early Neolithic, which makes them about 6,000 years older than Stonehenge. UNESCO made the site a World Heritage Site in 2018.
Discovery
The mound was recorded in 1963 by a survey from the University of Chicago and Istanbul University, who took the stones to be those of a medieval cemetery and passed on. In 1994 the German archaeologist Klaus Schmidt, of the German Archaeological Institute, saw it after reading the survey, recognised the flint tools and the stone pieces on the surface, and began excavating in 1995. He worked there until his death in 2014, and the work continues.
The enclosures
The best preserved of the enclosures are circles of 12 or so limestone pillars, set into slots in the bedrock, and linked by walls. Two taller pillars stand in the centre of each. The T-shaped pillars, up to about 5.5 metres tall and weighing 10 tonnes or more, appear to represent stylised people, since some have arms carved on their sides, with hands that meet over the front, and belts or loincloths.
Many of the pillars are carved with animals in relief: foxes, wild boar, snakes, aurochs, gazelles, cranes and vultures, spiders and scorpions. These are mostly dangerous or wild animals, not the ones that people ate. Some of the carvings are of apparently abstract symbols.
Excavators found that the enclosures were filled with rubble, animal bones and stone tools. Klaus Schmidt thought they had been buried on purpose after they went out of use, but that idea has been questioned since his death. Either way, the fill helped to preserve them. The site was gradually abandoned by about 8000 BC.
Who built it?
The builders were hunter-gatherers or people at the very start of farming. Huge amounts of effort must have gone into quarrying, carving and raising the pillars without metal tools, wheels or domestic animals, and that would have needed many people working together. That challenged the view that monumental building only began after people settled in farming villages. Some argue the reverse, that the need to feed workers helped to bring about the first farming. The earliest cultivated wheat, einkorn, is genetically close to wild varieties growing on nearby hills.
The first excavators described it as a temple or sanctuary, though later digs have found traces of houses and everyday work, suggesting a settled community, so the earlier picture has been revised. Karahan Tepe and other sites nearby, from the same period, are being excavated in a project called Taş Tepeler.
Visiting
The site has a protective roof, walkways and a visitor centre, and is about 15 km from Şanlıurfa. The Şanlıurfa Archaeology and Mosaic Museum has finds from Göbekli Tepe and other sites nearby.
Sources
- Schmidt, K. (2006). Sie bauten die ersten Tempel: das rätselhafte Heiligtum der Steinzeitjäger. C. H. Beck.
- Dietrich, O. and others (2012). The role of cult and feasting in the emergence of Neolithic communities: new evidence from Göbekli Tepe. Antiquity 86: 674 to 695.
- UNESCO World Heritage Centre. Göbekli Tepe.