Turkey 🇹🇷 ~Sanliurfa “Gobeklitepe is a Significant Archeological Discovery and Historical Landmark”
For lovers of history and amazing archeological finds, this stop was the creme de la crem! To others, this may be just a hole in a ground with old stones. But, this dig was a significant find, as it actually changed history as we knew it, up to this point. Daryl has been talking about going to Gobeklitepe every since I’ve known him. Today, his bucket list was fulfilled, by visiting this historic site. ✅
Daryl has wanted to see this place for a long time, and I was only too happy to go along!
Being at Göbeklitepe, I was reminded of our visit to Xian, China 🇨🇳, when we traveled so far, to also see another archeological find; the Terra Cotta Soldiers. That too, was just so incredible! Both the clay soldiers and Gobeklitepe had one common denominator; they were discovered by farmers, who, while in their fields working, discovered something unusual and reported their finding to the authorities.
Göbeklitepe translated in Turkish to “hill of the navel”
Daryl and I both have seen Stonehenge in England 🏴 as well as The Pyramids of Giza, in Egypt 🇪🇬. These ancient sites are incredibly fascinating to visit, because of their histories and mysteries surrounding their creations. BUT, Gobeklitepe was actually built before both of the afore mentioned sites. Now, having seen all three mystical places, it feels like the perfect trifecta of antiquities!
The prehistoric stone circle monument, cemetery, and archaeological site. It was built in six stages, between 3000 and 1520 BC
The Giza Pyramids, built to endure an eternity, have done just that. The monumental tombs are relics of Egypts Old Kingdom era, and were constructed some 4,500 years ago.
Gobeklitepe was built by a civilization which consisted of hunter-gatherers. More on the incredible interesting histories, in captions under the photos.
The Megaliths at Gobeklitepe
The megaliths themselves, 43 of which have been unearthed so far, are mainly T-shaped pillars of soft limestone up to around 16 feet in height, and were excavated and transported from a stone quarry on the lower southwestern slope of the hill. Geophysical surveys on the hill indicate that there are as many as 250 more megaliths, lying buried around the site; suggesting that another 16 complexes once existed at Gobeklitepe
Göbeklitepe has been determined to be the oldest religious site, to date. There are about 20 temples detected in this area, but only six of them have excavated so far.
The history of Göbeklitepe, which is more than 11,000 years old, dates back to the Neolithic Age. The cult structures in the region are known to have been built by the last hunting groups, close to agriculture and animal husbandry.
The archaeological excavations in the region began in 1995
Large number of wild animals motifs are observed in Göbeklitepe. The animals in the motifs vary and are in harmony with the fauna of the said period. The animal figures were embossed and there are many animal motifs on the stones such as scorpions, foxes, snakes, wild boar, lions, pike and wild ducks.
Research shows that the ancestor of wheat, an important cultural herb, was grown in this region. The biggest indicator of this are the einkorn grains, a wild wheat species, which were found in the soil of the Göbeklitepe. Other plant residues identified in the region are wild species of almonds and groundnuts. In the period when Göbeklitepe was constructed, people lived in small groups collecting plants and hunting animals. Thus, they probably gathered in such a crowd for the first time for the main purpose of constructing Göbeklitepe. Because, large pillars and heavy stones for the temple were carried by people without handcarts and animals, from the rocky regions for about a mile.
The many examples of sculptures and megalithic architecture, which make up what is believed to be the world’s earliest temple; predating pottery, metallurgy, the invention of writing, the wheel and the beginning of agriculture. The fact that hunter–gatherer people could organize the construction of such a complex site as far back as the 10th or 11th millennium BC, not only revolutionizes our understanding of hunter-gatherer culture but poses a serious challenge to the conventional view of the rise of civilization.
The excavators of Göbeklitepe believe that around 8,000 BC, the people at the site deliberately buried the monuments under mountains of soil and settlement refuse, such as flints and animal bones, brought from elsewhere. This backfilling is the main reason why the site has been preserved after so many thousands of years. Why the inhabitants of Göbeklitepe abandoned the site is not clearly understood, though the monuments had obviously lost their relevance, which may have had some connection with the new way of life which accompanied the development of agriculture and animal husbandry, which occurred around this time.
Intriguingly, in recent excavations at Göbeklitepe Schmidt’s team have uncovered pieces of human bones in soils which came from the niches behind the stone pillars at the site. Schmidt believes the bones show that corpses were brought into the ritual areas demarcated by the engraved T-shaped stone, where they were then laid out and left to be stripped of their soft tissue by wild animals. Such activity would Göbeklitepe both a cemetery and a center of a regional death cult.
Before our visit to Gobeklitepe, we Arrived in the nearest city of Sanliurfa, which is a good sized place. We found a hotel where we stayed one night, so we could easily get to the Archaeological site the next day.
It is quite a drive to get all the way East, to see this site, but fortunately there are many other interesting stops along the way, from the northwest of Istanbul. We have absolutely loved this journey and have been super impressed by the way Turkey takes pride in their ancient history and has done such a good job preserving their treasures. At the same time, Turkey has progressed into the modern ages, blending the new, splendidly with the old. This makes even the big cities interesting, because the old-world charm is still there.
Join the Conversation
Archive Blog Posts of Our Country Visits
About Us
About Us
Hello and Welcome to our Travel Blog Website, We enjoy writing about our experiences and taking photos of our adventuring along the way. Our names are: Daryl and Pen, but Daryl calls me “Bunny.” We met, quite randomly, whilst both… Read More
Wow, all new to me
It’s so cool!