Finding
upends the conventional view of the rise of
civilization
A German archaeologist by the name of Klaus Schmidt has claimed
discovery in Turkey of the world's oldest temple. Called Goebekli
Tepe, it predates Stonehenge by six thousand years.
Six miles from Urfa, an ancient city in southeastern Turkey, Klaus
Schmidt has made one of the most startling archaeological
discoveries of our time: massive carved stones about 11,000 years
old, crafted and arranged by prehistoric people who had not yet
developed metal tools or even pottery. The megaliths predate
Stonehenge by some 6,000 years. The place is called Gobekli Tepe,
and Schmidt, a German archaeologist who has been working here more
than a decade, is convinced it's the site of the world's oldest
temple.
Before the discovery of Goebekli 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,
Goebekli 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 Goebekli 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.
Now seen as early evidence of
prehistoric worship, the hilltop site was previously shunned by
researchers as nothing more than a medieval cemetery.
There is still much that we don't understand about religious
practices at Goebekli 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 Goebekli 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 Goebekli 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 Goebekli 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."