Arther & Ayse’s Gobeklitepe Adventure 033/032

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Indeed, this is the crux of the matter: is Göbeklitepe just a bunch of old T-shaped stones standing in the dirt or another jewel in the Turkish crown and an international game changer set to revise the conventional wisdom of human history?

Arther and Ayşe looked beyond the students to see what they’d come to see. It was again slightly underwhelming. Down below feet level stood a rather forlorn looking T-shaped stone. Ayşe felt a tad sorry for this uncovered and apparently bondaged T-shape upright. It looked captured. Wooden and metal beams and rods hold the pillar in place now the supporting earth has been removed.

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They looked around. Arther had past work experience on building sites and this looked not dissimilar.

Scaffolding. Wooden beams and struts. Crates. Piles of stone purposefully arranged and stacked. Trenching and sandbags. Dust everywhere. Even fire extinguishers.

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So, let’s consider a general over view.

The upstanding stones are found in what appear as dugout pits. The T-shapes stone pillars are arranged in circles. So far, there are 5 partially excavated circle arrangements. Each ring has a roughly similar layout: in the centre are two large stone T-shaped pillars with their biggest flat sides parallel to one another, encircled by slightly smaller stones facing inward with their flat sides parallel too.

Arther wondered what a bird’s eye over view of the site might look like. Ayşe requested a quick sketch from Ned to give a general impression of where they were and what they were contemplating.

Problem yok Ayşe… as the Turks say. No problem Ayşe! This depicts circles that archaeologist Klaus Schmidt labelled A, B, C and D… like an architectural drawing plan; looking down as a bird might do from the sky. The black solid bits are the T-shapes.

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Klaus Schmidt mapped the entire Göbeklitepe summit using ground-penetrating radar and geomagnetic surveys, charting at least 16 additional megalithic rings that remain buried across 22 acres. The one-acre that has been excavated represents less than 5% of the site. He suggested archaeologists could dig here for another 50 years and barely scratch the surface.

Well, I suppose 50 is no time compared to 11,600 years.

The T-shape pillars have a personalised character about them.

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The tallest pillars reach a height of about 16 feet.

Some have blank sides while others display protruding carved imagery looking like foxes, lions, scorpions, spiders, snakes, birds and images that remind us of baskets or handbags.

To be continued….
Arther & Ayse’s Gobeklitepe Adventure on Tap Blog. A spontaneous social media story experiment originally tested on FakeBook 19 November 2017. Gobeklitepe is an ancient megalith site on the Turkish-Syrian border said to be at least 11,600 years old. Is it just a bunch of old stones stood in Turkish soil or a game changer for a myriad of reasons? This story aims to explore the possible implications and touch upon issues and subject matter posted about on Tap Blog.