We have several reasons to say that the site of Göbekli Tepe will certainly be one of the major archaeological discoveries of the 21st century. The first is that this site has a history of 12,000 years. In other words, 4,000 years older than the pyramids, or 7,000 years older than Stonehenge. Even before humanity began to settle down... this discovery made it possible to understand that religious beliefs had not waited for the appearance of the first cities and the transition to sedentarization to develop, as had been previously thought. The excavations carried out at Göbekli Tepe and the research that followed added new pages to the knowledge that one had of this period, and to understand that a class of officiants already existed at this time and that the appearance of social classes went much further back. Due to the contribution made by this site to the understanding of the history of humanity, Göbekli Tepe has obtained the right to be included in the indicative list of the world cultural heritage of UNESCO, pending its final classification.
A discovery of NATURE has changed the history of humanity
Although the first discovery of this site, which upset some of the certainties that had existed for several centuries, dates back to 1963, the first full-scale excavations did not begin until 1995. Several temples are located in this place, which was never a place of settlement and served only for religious purposes. From this point of view, it is not only the oldest place of worship of deities, but also the greatest. The monumental temples, of which 6 have been updated to the present day and whose geomagnetic measurements made on the site suggest that there should be a total of about twenty, suggest that this entire region was a center of beliefs and pilgrimage from the beginning of the Neolithic. The T-shaped columns, which are 6 m high, have the oldest reliefs of human history engraved on stone, and these representations of animals sculpted in three dimensions attest to the artistic abilities of our ancestors. For Professor Klaus Schmidt, who directed the excavations of this site for about twenty years, these T-columns where one sees hands and fingers in places certainly symbolize human figures.
The whole world is waiting
Göbekli Tepe, who focused the attention of the whole world from the discovery of the monumental temples, has been the subject of countless articles and documentaries. Apart from the BBC documentary or the articles published in The Guardian, one of the most interesting reports was probably that of Der Spiegel. In a nice metaphor, which is widely quoted, this magazine wrote that Göbekli Tepe was perhaps the place where Adam and Eve settled after being driven out of Paradise. This poetic argument was based on the fact that Adam, according to the Bible, once settled in his new lands of Exile, sowed the first wheat there. And it is indeed on the Göbekli Tepe site that agriculture is born for the first time.
STILL UNANSWERED QUESTIONS
Although much new knowledge has emerged from the Göbekli Tepe site, unanswered questions continue to preoccupy archaeologists and researchers. Which people were behind the building of these temples ? How were these columns, weighing up to 60 tons, brought and erected on this site ? Why were these temples buried and covered with tons of Earth and stones ? What exactly were these temples used for ? These are mysteries which will certainly wait for many years for research to give them an appropriate answer. The only thing we can be sure of is that all these studies will continue to make their contribution to the history of humanity and to challenge everything we were certain until today.
How to get there?
The archaeological site of Göbekli Tepe is located near the village of Örencik, 15 km north-east of Şanlıurfa, which is one of the most mystical cities in Turkey, known as the”city of the prophets". There are regular flights to Şanlıurfa airport from Ankara, Istanbul and Izmir. Some of the objects discovered during the excavations are on display in the city's Archaeological Museum.
