Your if you build it, they will come Friday open thread

by liberal japonicus

I don't often succumb to the slideshow posts that are often at the bottom of news stories ('see 5 celebs who regretted plastic surgery' was a recent one) so I'm not sure why I clicked on the 'see 6 ancient mysteries', but I'm quite glad I did. The first 4 were pretty ho-hum, Atlantis, Stonehenge, the Pyramids, Nazca lines.  (I was maybe 9 or so when I read Chariots of Fire by Eric von Däniken and while it is embarassing to admit to having read such tripe, it either instilled or tapped into a desire I still have to know more about the past) The 5th one was interesting, the Antikythera mechanism, but I had already seen it made out of Legos, so it wasn't like I was unaware of it. (2 part Nature video link and link)

But the last one, Göbekli Tepe, was a revelation. These grafs from the National Geographic, give an idea:

Known as Göbekli Tepe (pronounced Guh-behk-LEE TEH-peh), the site is vaguely reminiscent of Stonehenge, except that Göbekli Tepe was built much earlier and is made not from roughly hewn blocks but from cleanly carved limestone pillars splashed with bas-reliefs of animals—a cavalcade of gazelles, snakes, foxes, scorpions, and ferocious wild boars. The assemblage was built some 11,600 years ago, seven millennia before the Great Pyramid of Giza. It contains the oldest known temple. Indeed, Göbekli Tepe is the oldest known example of monumental architecture—the first structure human beings put together that was bigger and more complicated than a hut. When these pillars were erected, so far as we know, nothing of comparable scale existed in the world.

At the time of Göbekli Tepe's construction much of the human race lived in small nomadic bands that survived by foraging for plants and hunting wild animals. Construction of the site would have required more people coming together in one place than had likely occurred before. Amazingly, the temple's builders were able to cut, shape, and transport 16-ton stones hundreds of feet despite having no wheels or beasts of burden. The pilgrims who came to Göbekli Tepe lived in a world without writing, metal, or pottery; to those approaching the temple from below, its pillars must have loomed overhead like rigid giants, the animals on the stones shivering in the firelight—emissaries from a spiritual world that the human mind may have only begun to envision.

Archaeologists are still excavating Göbekli Tepe and debating its meaning. What they do know is that the site is the most significant in a volley of unexpected findings that have overturned earlier ideas about our species' deep past. Just 20 years ago most researchers believed they knew the time, place, and rough sequence of the Neolithic Revolution—the critical transition that resulted in the birth of agriculture, taking Homo sapiens from scattered groups of hunter-gatherers to farming villages and from there to technologically sophisticated societies with great temples and towers and kings and priests who directed the labor of their subjects and recorded their feats in written form. But in recent years multiple new discoveries, Göbekli Tepe preeminent among them, have begun forcing archaeologists to reconsider.

The place has its own website. The author of this Smithsonian article says that it has been reported extensively in the German media, so maybe our German commentator contingent might have some things to add. Or anyone else on anything else, it's an open thread, so have at it. 

 

Comments

[JakeB]

Bah! Here I am reading Toby Wilkinson's _Rise and Fall of Ancient Egypt_ and marveling that they were building pyramids while my ancestors were running around in the forest hitting each other with clubs. And you tell me the Egyptians were Amenhoteps-come-lately?

[Marcellina]

I think you mean "Chariots of the Gods?"... "Chariots of Fire" was that story of the English runners and that godawful theme song that played on every radio a few decades back.

[Marcellina]

There was a long New Yorker article about Göbekli Tepe a few months back, and I remember that one of the chief researchers working there is a German, which would explain why the Temple gets more coverage there. Sorry I am of no help with the name.

[Marcellina]

(Duh... Klaus Schmidt, right there in the NG article. I clearly need to post after morning coffee, not before. )

[liberal japonicus]

Ahh, Marcellina, you're right. It's funny, just before this, I was looking up the youtube for last night of the Proms and just have gotten my wires crossed.

[Slartibartfast]

Very cool, lj. I dimly recall being aware of this, but I guess I hit the snooze button.

[joel hanes]

Also in Anatolia : Catal Huyuk, the "world's first village", Neolithic ca 6500 BCE

Also in Anatolia : probable origin of wheat cultivar.

[Doug]

Thanks for pointing this out. The most startling thing about it for me is that someone would undertake the immense labor of burying this site, and perhaps others, preserving it through so many millenia. This is so far outside our customary framework that my browser's spell checker won't recognize a plural for millennium.

[McKinneyTexas]

LJ, this is really quite spectacular. I am embarrased to say I was completely unaware of this. The implications make me dizzy. Thanks much.

[Slartibartfast]

For sure, there's going to be a flying saucer under all of that rubble.

[Ugh]

Uh, duh. The Göbekli Tepe is part of calculating the Ultimate Question of Life, The Universe and Everything.

If you don't believe me, ask the Magrathean that hangs around these parts...

[wj]

Every time we get comfortable thinking we know at least the major outlines of where and how civilization arose, something like this comes along to force us to think again.

Thank you so much for letting us know about this!

[cleek]

seems unlikely, since the earth is only 6000 years old.

DERP

[wj]

Um, cleek, if the world was created in 6000 BC, wouldn't that make it 8000 years old?

Still, I take your point. (And at least this forumm is full of people who are willing to let a few facts get in the way of ideology.)

[Hartmut]

It's obvious that it was these pagans with their temple that led God to send the flood (which buried it in sediment). It's also a far more natural way from there to Mt.Ararat then from Palestine.
---
The head of the excavation team did a few talks around here. In general there is much caution about interpreting the findings (and some feuds similar to that about Troy). Serious archaeologists rightfully fear for their reputation, if the usual nutjobs take over the discussion and most are not happy when they find themselves on the first page of the BILD-Zeitung. At least over here they have nothing to fear from organized religion.