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Gobekli Tepe: Fantastic New Photos Of 11,000 Year Old Temple Complex, The Oldest Known

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Gobekli Tepe, the world’s oldest known temple, dates back more than 11,000 years and is located near the ancient city of Şanlıurfa.  
 

 

Göbekli Tepe is an early Neolithic sanctuary located at the top of a mountain ridge in the Southeastern Anatolia Region of Turkey, northeast of the town of Şanlıurfa (formerly Urfa / Edessa). It includes massive stones carved about 11,000 years ago by people who had not yet developed metal tools or even pottery 
 
 
Overview of the Gobekli Tepe archaeological site.
 

The history of Şanlıurfa is recorded from the 4th century BC, but may date back to 9000 BC, when there is ample evidence for the surrounding sites at Duru, Harran and Nevali Cori. It was one of several cities in the Euphrates-Tigris basin, the cradle of the Mesopotamian civilization. According to Turkish Muslim traditions Urfa (its name since Byzantine days) is the biblical city of Ur of the Chaldees, due to its proximity to the biblical village of Harran. However, based on historical and archaeological evidence, the city of Ur is today generally known to have been in southern Iraq, and the true birthplace of Abraham is still in question. Urfa is also known as the birthplace of Job.

 
Location of Gobekli Tepe and Urfa

The tell has a height of 15 m (49 ft) and is about 300 m (984 ft) in diameter. It is approximately 760 m (2,493 ft) above sea level. It was first noted in a survey conducted by Istanbul University and the University of Chicago in 1964. The survey recognized that the rise could not entirely be a natural feature, but postulated that a Byzantine cemetery lay beneath. The survey noted a large number of flints and the presence of limestone slabs thought to be grave markers. The hill had long been under agricultural cultivation; generations of local inhabitants had frequently moved rocks and placed them in clearance piles, possibly destroying much archaeological evidence in the process. 

 

Klaus Schmidt, chief archaeologist of Göbekli Tepe, is of the view that religion and the mobilization of labor behind the building of religious centers like Göbekli Tepe were the chief factors driving the development of civilization and the transition from the Paleolithic to the Neolithic ages

 

An idealized view of Gobekli Tepe as it might have looked during construction. 

 

A view looking down into the main dig at Gobekli Tepe. 

Schmidt, now of the Deutsches Archäologisches Institut, was working as part of a team at a nearby site but at the same time looking for another site to dig leading a team of his own. He reviewed the archaeological literature on the surrounding area, found the Chicago researchers’ brief description of Göbekli Tepe, and decided to give it another look. “Within minutes”, he said, he realized that the flint chips on the surface of the tell were prehistoric. The following year (1995) he began excavating there in collaboration with the Şanlıurfa Museum. T-shaped pillars were soon discovered. Some had apparently undergone attempts at smashing, probably by farmers who mistook them for ordinary large rocks.
 

Schmidt’s view, shared by most experts, is that Göbekli Tepe is a stone-age mountain sanctuary. Radiocarbon dating as well as comparative, stylistic analysis indicate that it is the oldest religious site found to date. Schmidt believes that what he calls this “cathedral on a hill” was a pilgrimage destination attracting worshipers up to 100 miles (160 km) distant.

 

A carving of a lion and a boar on the stele at Gobekli Tepe. 
 
 Butchered bones found in large numbers from local game such as deer, gazelle, pigs, and geese have been identified as refuse from food hunted and cooked or otherwise prepared for congregants
 
 
Göbekli Tepe is regarded as an archaeological discovery of the greatest importance since it could profoundly change the understanding of a crucial stage in the development of human society. Ian Hodder of Stanford University said, “Göbekli Tepe changes everything”.  
 
 David Lewis-Williams, professor of archaeology at Witwatersrand University in Johannesburg, has said, “Göbekli Tepe is the most important archaeological site in the world.” It shows that the erection of monumental complexes was within the capacities of hunter-gatherers and not only of sedentary farming communities as had been previously assumed. As excavator Klaus Schmidt puts it, “First came the temple, then the city.
 
 
Not only its large dimensions, but the side-by-side existence of multiple pillar shrines makes the location unique. 
 
There are no comparable monumental complexes from its time. Nevalı Çori, a Neolithic settlement also excavated by the German Archaeological Institute and submerged by the Atatürk Dam since 1992, is 500 years later; 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 younger.
 
Göbekli Tepe’s Totem by Krsanna Duran
http://twitter.com/GobekliTepe http://GobekliTepe.info.tr/
 
At present, though, 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 “read” 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.
 
 
About 20 of these large oval and circular rooms have been found with diameters of about 30 meters.

 

 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.” It is not known why every few decades the existing pillars were buried to be replaced by new stones as part of a smaller, concentric ring inside the older one.
 
 
In the center of each of the oval rooms stands a large T-shape pillar
 
 Human burial may or may not have occurred at the site. The reason the complex was carefully backfilled remains unexplained. Until more evidence is gathered, it is difficult to deduce anything certain about the originating culture or the site’s significance.
 
Each of the pillars is decorated with animals and abstract symbols are carved into the pillars indicating cultural memory and a symbolic world existing in society 12,000 years ago. 
 
 
The carved pillars are proof of awesome and accomplished skills in stoneworking by our ancestors 12,000 years ago.  

 

 
The T-shape pillars are though to be stylized representations of human beings with their arms outspread. 

 

Many of the pillars are carved with 3-D reliefs in a naturalistic style 

 

 
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.” It is not known why every few decades the existing pillars were buried to be replaced by new stones as part of a smaller, concentric ring inside the older one.
 
 
 
Human burial may or may not have occurred at the site. The reason the complex was carefully backfilled remains unexplained. Until more evidence is gathered, it is difficult to deduce anything certain about the originating culture or the site’s significance.
 
Future plans include construction of a museum, and converting the environs into an archaeological park, in the hope that this will help preserve the site in the state in which it was discovered.

In 2010, Global Heritage Fund (GHF) announced it will undertake a multi-year conservation program to preserve Göbekli Tepe. Partners include Klaus Schmidt and the Deutsches Archäologisches Institut, German Research Foundation, Şanlıurfa Municipal Government, and the Turkish Ministry of Tourism and Culture.

 

 

The stated goals of the GHF Göbekli Tepe project are to support the preparation of a site management and conservation plan, construction of a shelter over the exposed archaeological features, training community members in guiding and conservation, and helping Turkish authorities secure UNESCO World Heritage Site designation for Gobekli Tepe.

 
Oldest known full size statute of a man

 One theory about Gobekli Tepe is the nearby holes were part of a scenario where statues were placed in the larger holes and small fires were lit in the small holes.” 
 

Sources:
https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B8yAiUCdzj53U2w5aEJaZXVFcVU/edit
https://www.facebook.com/gobeklitepe



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    Total 13 comments
    • Ridd10

      Humanity is far older than most any of us can guess. Mother nature and time have erased much of our species history. And man has a habit of destroying it as well.

      There are ruins on this world that date back 200,000 years, every so often they find archaeological abnormalities that don’t fit with the accepted time line of humanity.

      Such as the Antikythera mechanism, or the thousands of objects found in coal deposits far below ground that should not be there. Like a modern screw that was mined out of a coal deposit that would have had to fallen in to that deposit when it was still and oil or tar deposit ten of thousands of years ago.

      We are a species with amnesia.

      • HereAmI

        The AK mechanism has markings on it which indicate which of four locations the Olympic games would take place in; as such, therefore, it is not particularly ancient.
        But it certainly shows that the ancient Greeks were master metalworkers.

    • patriot156

      Burrying and starting again is easily answered. Much like main stream science is now burrying the truth on this. Notice how instead of rewriting things they are saying that this was still made in stone age times. Looks like Evolution takes another nose dive with this one.
      Also this site isn’t too far from Ron Wyats Ark he found not on Aryrat itself, but in the Aryrat area like the Bible says. You can Google Earth it,and see a large boat structure.
      One thing too just like today people came to this region thousands of years ago, and told them to burry it, for they already have civilization over here. So, not wanting to confuse they burried it.

      All the animals are showing Noahs ark.
      That stone just above the man statue looks like Rainbows. I fully believe were tons of years older than main stream science says, but not billions.
      Count up all the ages of Adam-Noah=7,000 years easy.
      adam=900 years etc.. add them up :cool:
      I believe weve been in limbo as well, for evidence does show there have been nuclear war, or explosions in certain civilizations.

      Were created not evolved :twisted:

      • HereAmI

        The AK mechanism has markings on it which indicate which of four locations the Olympic games would take place in; as such, therefore, it is not particularly ancient.
        But it certainly shows that the ancient Greeks were master metalworkers.

        Jeremiah ch 4 v 23 is interesting.
        “I beheld the earth, and lo, it was without form and void, and the heavens, and they had no light”.
        This state of affairs is elaborated upon three verses later;

        “I beheld, and lo, the fruitful place was a wilderness, and the cities thereof were broken down at the presence of the Lord, and by His fierce anger”.

        No human being was present at the foundation of the world, so Jeremiah is probably speaking about a situation which arose later, and which he was allowed to witness through the power of God’s holy spirit.
        We know that the word translated as “was” in, “And the earth was without form and void” in Genesis ch 1 should better be rendered as “became”, ie God did not originally create the world in vain, He created it to be inhabited; but He later destroyed it because of wickedness in its inhabitants. “The earth became without form and void”.

        It appears that these broken-down cities were destroyed because of their inhabitants’ rebellion against God, much as Sodom and Gomorrah would also be destroyed later in the historical record.
        I suspect that we are now witnessing what remains of the centre of one of these cities, which would have flourished in the time space between Genesis ch 1, verses 1 and 2.
        Thus the earth could be much older than 6000 years. But 6000 years ago, God began to rebuild it in the six days and nights that we know about.

    • AmazingTemples.com

      Great post with very detailed photos! Do you know, if the site is open for the public ?

    • Wretched Infidel

      Amazing!!!! A – MAZE -ING!!!! THANK YOU

    • Norm D. Plume

      We know that, often, the ancients built their cities, temples, fortifications and so on atop the ruins of older structures.

      What lies BENEATH Gobekli Tepe?

    • Mr Fred Rogers

      Good read and pictures :grin:

    • Great poste, I appreciate your point of view for your professionalism, and I wish you good day the pleasure of reading your future articles. acheter compex full fitness

    • truthseeker4809

      The stone sculpture of the strange animal crawling upside down looks familiar. They have it in the two front side stone pillars in the modern day tomb stones in a typical dome style Korean tombs. What does it mean and where did that tradition come from?

      Nobody really knows. Somehow they always crawl upside down.

    • Jack

      Although a fascinating subject, why do you say “new photos” when this was first posted almost a year ago?

    • David Montaigne

      Civilizations have risen and fallen many times. The Egyptian priesthood claimed records going back over 30,000 years. Plato claims they described the destruction of Atlantis roughly 10,000 BC.

      The culprit is always a pole shift. They are regular and predictable and we have been warned about the next one.

      http://endtimesand2019.webs.com/

    • LawSuth

      This article has so many grammatical errors that I couldn’t properly enjoy it.

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