Gobekli Tepe Documentary

Gobekli Tepe ( Kurdish: Girê Navokê) is a hilltop sanctuary built on the highest point of an elongated mountain ridge about 15 km northeast of the Kurdish town of Urfa in northern Kurdistan. The site, currently undergoing excavation by German archaeologists,and was erected by hunter-gatherers in the 10th millennium BC (ca 11,500 years ago), before the advent of sedentism. . Göbekli Tepe is the oldest human-made place of worship yet discovered. Until excavations began, a complex on this scale was not thought possible for a community so ancient. The oldest occupation layer (stratum III) contains monolithic pillars linked by coarsely built walls to form circular or oval structures. So far, four such buildings, with diameters between 10 and 30m have been uncovered. Geophysical surveys indicate the existence of 16 additional structures.Stratum II, dated to Pre-Pottery Neolithic B (PPNB) (7500 – 6000 BC), has revealed several adjacent rectangular rooms with floors of polished lime, reminiscent of Roman terrazzo floors. The most recent layer consists of sediment deposited as the result of agricultural activity.The monoliths are decorated with carved reliefs of animals and of abstract pictograms. These signs cannot be classed as writing, but may represent commonly understood sacred symbols, as known from Neolithic cave paintings elsewhere. The very carefully carved reliefs depict lions, bulls, boars, foxes, gazelles, asses, snakes and other reptiles, insects, arachnids, and birds, particularly vultures and water fowl.

Vultures also feature in the iconography of the Neolithic sites of Çatalhöyük and Jericho; it is believed that in the early Neolithic culture of Kurdistan and the Near East the deceased were deliberately exposed in order to be excarnated by vultures and other birds of prey. (The head of the deceased was sometimes removed and preserved—possibly a sign of ancestor worship.) There are freestanding sculptures as well that may represent wild boars or foxes. As they are heavily encrusted with lime, it is sometimes difficult to tell. Comparable statues have been discovered at Neval? Çori and Nahal Hemar.The quarries for the statues are located on the plateau itself; some unfinished pillars have been found there in situ. The biggest unfinished pillar is still 6.9 m long; a length of 9m has been reconstructed. This is much larger than any of the finished pillars found so far. The stone was quarried with stone picks. Bowl-like depressions in the limestone rocks may already have served as mortars or fire-starting bowls in the epipalaeolithic.
While the structures are primarily temples, more recently smaller domestic buildings have been uncovered. Despite this, it is clear that the primary use of the site was cultic and not domestic. Schmidt believes this “cathedral on a hill” was a pilgrimage destination attracting worshipers up to a hundred miles distant. Butchered bones found in large numbers from local game such as deer, gazelle, pigs, and geese suggest that ritual feasting (and perhaps sacrifice) were regularly practiced here.Göbekli Tepe is regarded as an archaeological discovery of the greatest importance, since it profoundly changes our understanding of a crucial stage in the development of human societies. Apparently, the erection of monumental complexes was within the capacities of hunter-gatherers and not only of sedentary farming communities as had been previously assumed. In other words, as excavator Klaus Schmidt put it: “First came the temple, then the city.” This revolutionary hypothesis will have to be supported or modified by future research.

This article was Partially taken from Wikipedia.

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