Oldest Temple in the world: Over 11,000 years old Gbekli Tepe in Turkey shows the artistic genius o

[Judi Lynn]

Oldest Temple in the world: Over 11,000 years old Göbekli Tepe in Turkey shows the artistic genius of early humans
Published: November 26, 2019 1:59:21 PM
Located fifteen kilometres away from the Turkish city of Sanlıurfa, Göbekli Tepe, which was added to the UNESCO World Heritage List in 2018, is believed to be a centre of faith and pilgrimage during the Neolithic Age.


Oldest Temple in the world: Over 11,000 years old Göbekli Tepe in Turkey shows the artistic genius of early humans
Published: November 26, 2019 1:59:21 PM


Oldest Temple in the world: Over 11,000 years old Göbekli Tepe in Turkey shows the artistic genius of early humans
Published: November 26, 2019 1:59:21 PM
Located fifteen kilometres away from the Turkish city of Sanlıurfa, Göbekli Tepe, which was added to the UNESCO World Heritage List in 2018, is believed to be a centre of faith and pilgrimage during the Neolithic Age.
oldest temple in the world, turkey tourism, Göbekli Tepe in Turkey, neolithic temple, pre-historic humans, pre-historic religion

The monumental structures, which stand as testaments to the artistic abilities of our ancestors, also offer insights into the life and beliefs of people living in the Pre-Pottery Neolithic period (10th-9th millennia BC).



By Puja Changoiwala

As I stood under the 4000-square-foot steel roof erected to protect the oldest temple of the world in Upper Mesopotamia, it wasn’t the grandeur of the archaeological marvel that dominated my thoughts. It was how humans of the pre-pottery age, when simple hand tools were yet to be discovered, erected the cathedral on the highest point of a mountain range. Known as “zero point” in the history of human civilization, southeast Turkey’s Göbekli Tepe pre-dates the pyramids by 8,000 years, and the Stonehenge by six millennia. Its discovery revolutionised the way archaeologists think about the origins of human civilization.

“The men, who built the temple 11,200 years ago, belonged to the Neolithic period,” Sehzat Kaya, a professional tourist guide, tells me, “They were hunter-gatherers, surviving on plants and wild animals. It was a world without pottery, writing, the wheel, and even the most primitive tools. In such a scenario, it’s incredible how the builders were able to transport stones weighing tonnes from a quarry kilometres away, and how they managed to cut, carve and shape these stones into round-oval and rectangular megalithic structures.”

Located fifteen kilometres away from the Turkish city of Sanlıurfa, Göbekli Tepe, which was added to the UNESCO World Heritage List in 2018, is believed to be a centre of faith and pilgrimage during the Neolithic Age. Since the site is older than human transition to settled life, it upends conventional views, proving the existence of religious beliefs prior to the establishment of the first cities. It altered human history with archaeologists believing that the site was a temple used to perform funerary rituals.

Klaus Schmidt, a German archaeologist and pre-historian, who led the excavations at the site from 1996, noted in a 2011 paper that no residential buildings were discovered at the site, even as at least two phases of religious architecture were uncovered. Schmidt discarded the possibility that the site was a mundane settlement of the period, and insisted that it belonged to “a religious sphere, a sacred area.”

More:
https://www.financialexpress.com/lifestyle/travel-tourism/oldest-temple-in-the-world-over-11000-years-old-gobekli-tepe-in-turkey-shows-the-artistic-genius-of-early-humans/1775649/

Many more photographs with their sources at google images:
https://tinyurl.com/u73xugx

[hedda_foil]

1. K&R. This deserves to be seen by more DUers!

[cally]

2. At some point, the entire site was buried

And smaller versions of these standing circles have been found elsewhere in surrounding areas. No one knows what the religion was.

I’m confused by the writing. I went on a learning binge about the site maybe 3to 4 years ago. I’ve never seen anything to support it was a patriarchal society. Just not enough information to make these conclusions.