--- title: "The Ancient Mystery of Gobekli Tepe: Unraveling History's Greatest Puzzle" description: "## Ancient Observatory, Temple, or Brewery?\n\nIn 1994, an archaeological site was discovered which would revolutionise our understanding of the origins of civilisation. This site is called Göbekli Tepe, a megalithic construction created after the end of the last Ice Age and abandoned some time in the Neolithic period. The revolutionary nature of the discovery, as well as the highly enigmatic nature of the finds, has led to an endless stream of breathless media hyperbole and a wealth of theories about its purpose, some shakier than others.\n\nThere have been many theories about what Göbekli Tepe was for. It's been interpreted as a temple, an astronomical observatory, a gigantic barbecue area, the remnants of the lost civilisation of Atlantis, or the original location of the Garden of Eden. Amidst all this public interest, the teams of archaeologists digging Göbekli Tepe have been patiently unearthing new discoveries and inching our understanding of the monument ever so gradually forward. Our understanding of what was actually going on here has changed dramatically since the late great Klaus Schmidt first decided to take a punt on a barren, supposedly unpromising hilltop, and it's this changing picture we'll explore.\n\n## The Site\n\nGöbekli Tepe is in the south-eastern part of modern day Turkey, on the highest point of the Germus mountains, overlooking the Harran plain and a tributary of the Euphrates. The area around Göbekli Tepe is known as the Urfa or Stone Hills region, and the earliest known evidence of permanent human settlement has been found here. Since Klaus Schmidt first rediscovered the site, debate has raged over its absolute chronology, with Schmidt insisting that the monument was built much earlier than the available evidence seemed to suggest.\n\nThis debate now seems to have been resolved. The earliest phases of the site are firmly dated to the latter part of the period known as the Pre-Pottery Neolithic A, or PPN-A. This is a stretch of time between 9,600 and 8,800 BCE, just prior to the invention of pottery. This is a transitional period, when most people still moved in highly mobile hunter gatherer groups, but some evidence of permanent settlement and the beginnings of agriculture begins to appear. The later phases of construction are dated to PPN-B, between 8,800 and 7,000 BCE.\n\nThe earlier PPN-A period is identified as originating from the Mesolithic Natufian culture. In this region, the Mesolithic period is considered to stretch between 18,000 and approximately 10,000 BCE. The later PPN-B cultures have a similar origin but are considered separately as their material culture suggests an influx of Levantine peoples from further north.\n\nOf course, only about 5-10% of the site has yet been excavated, so everything is still very much up for grabs, including the possibility that a much earlier dating may yet be in the offing. For now, though, all available evidence tells us that Göbekli Tepe is a late PPN-A monument. This makes sense, as the PPN-A period is characterised by permanent settlements, occasionally containing large stone monuments.\n\nGöbekli Tepe covers 9 hectares and is roughly 300 meters in diameter. The mound in which the monument stands is a man-made hill 15 meters in height. The older PPN-A construction is made up of circular enclosures between 10 and 20 meters in diameter, connected by limestone walls with benches set against them. Each circular enclosure contains a pair of 5 meter tall pillars in the centre, mounted in some sort of circular structure, and surrounded by smaller pillars. Each enclosure also seems to contain a communal building of a kind typical of the area.\n\nThe two big central pillars are almost certainly depictions of male humans. The probable gender of these pillars is based on comparison to other, very similar pillars in the surrounding area. This T-shaped style of pillar is unique to the Urfa region but is repeated at a number of nearby sites of a similar period. In these other sites, both men and women are represented, but only males are ever depicted wearing belts. The central pillars in Göbekli Tepe are all wearing belts, which strongly suggests they're all male. Fox bones were found at the bottom of one pillar which depicts a man in what is possibly a fox fur, indicating that perhaps it was decorated with a real skin at some point, or possibly offered one as part of a ritual.\n\nOther pillars in the enclosures have highly skilful relief carvings of a variety of animals including snakes, foxes, cranes, storks, boar, gazelles, and aurochs – a wild cow which was the extinct ancestor of our domesticated varieties. There are also multiple representations of predators and, quite famously, vultures and scorpions. The consistency and quality of these carvings indicate that a more or less professional artisan class existed, as most archaeologists agree that the artwork is far too good to have been done on the spur of the moment by untrained individuals.\n\nAmongst all these animals are some abstract geometric symbols, some astonishingly skilful sculptures in deep relief, representations of people, some headless, interacting with animals, each other, or themselves, and even a later graffito of female genitalia. This is the only female representation in the site and is not considered original. For whatever reason, Göbekli Tepe is a very male space, with a multitude of ithyphallic representations. Ithyphallic is academic speak for 'erect penis'.\n\nGöbekli Tepe is a multi-layered site – in archaeology, this is referred to as a palimpsest. The earliest PPN-A level is called Layer III and overlaid above this is the PPN-B site, made about 1,000 years later. Here, the enclosures have shrunk somewhat, and have transitioned from circular to rectangular. The workmanship seems to have degraded somewhat, and most of these later enclosures are smaller and contain only the two central pillars, also on a much smaller scale, generally being 1.5 meters high.\n\nIt used to be believed that at some point in the Neolithic, the users of Göbekli Tepe, for some mysterious reason, buried the entire monument, hiding it from view for thousands of years. That is not the current consensus among archaeologists. This part of Anatolia is very earthquake prone, and the site sits in a sort of hollow at the top of its plateau. According to Jens Notroff, one of the archaeologists on the site, the stratigraphy of the top of the mound, Layer I, is extremely complicated. While there are some clear signs of deliberate burial, these only seem to come up to the cross bars of the T-shaped pillars. Quite a lot of the rest of the backfill appears to be natural, so this story seems to be more complex, stretching over a much longer time, than initially thought.\n\nVery little of this interpretation is definite, however – it's just the most plausible theory right now. And this is a theme with Göbekli Tepe. What did all these animals and ithyphallic stuff mean? Why did the enclosures transition from circular to rectangular? Why the seeming reduction in quality of workmanship? Why does the site exist at all? Well, nobody really knows. There are a bunch of theories, though, so let's look at some of them now.\n\n## Ancient Temple\n\nWhen Klaus Schmidt first began excavating the site, he came to the very reasonable conclusion that the effort required to create something of this size must have been motivated by ritual or religious reasons. This is a pretty safe theory for most monumental construction of the ancient past, and it matches up nicely with the later monumental structures we actually have written records for. So when he declared Göbekli Tepe as the world's first temple, this seemed reasonable at the time.\n\nRecent discoveries, however, have cast doubt on this idea. While it's still almost certain that Göbekli Tepe had a religious function, it's probably not a dedicated temple, and it's definitely not the first of its kind. Karahan Tepe, found nearby, is 300 years older than Göbekli Tepe, and bears many of the same hallmarks. Its construction is obviously different, using wood rather than stone, and containing a different style of figures, but the basic idea of connected enclosures and animal and human iconography makes it very clear to archaeologists that Karahan Tepe represents a stage in the evolution of monumental sites in this area, leading eventually to the massive pillars and pits of Göbekli Tepe.\n\nWhile nobody has any serious problems with the site as a place of worship, what's more questionable is the idea that it was a purely religious site. Schmidt wasn't able to find good evidence for contemporaneous permanent settlement anywhere near Göbekli Tepe. As far as his team could make out, there was no reliable water source and no burials, and this view coloured their interpretation of much of the evidence.\n\nSchmidt's assumption was that if nobody was living at or near the site, then they must only have returned seasonally in order to perform sacred rituals, and to be fair, nothing else really fits very well with the picture he had. Schmidt unfortunately died in 2014, so he wasn't able to see the subsequent work which cast a new light on some of these issues. While he had noted substantial rainwater storage cisterns on the site, this still chimed, in his mind, with temporary occupation rather than permanent settlement. What he didn't know, however, was that climatic analysis of the area would uncover the fact that the water table was much higher in the Neolithic period, and that this makes it likely that dried out springs nearby would have been active at the time Göbekli Tepe was in use. This means that archaeologists are now looking at Göbekli Tepe as more of a hybrid or multi-use site, which makes more sense as areas where the sacred is mixed with the mundane are much more typical of the Neolithic.\n\nThe main pillar (no pun intended) of the ancient temple theory is the amount of labour required to build Göbekli Tepe. Schmidt made labour estimates based on the experiments done with the giant heads, or Moai, on Easter Island, which found that hundreds of workers would have been required. Experiments on the actual site of Göbekli Tepe, however, using period appropriate materials and tools, found that even the largest pillars could have been quarried and constructed by 10 – 14 people. This, remember, is also the number of people who could comfortably fit in the site's communal buildings, and seems to suggest a somewhat more domestic, though still sacred, purpose for these structures.\n\n## Ancient Barbecue Area\n\nThere is a lot of animal bone in Göbekli Tepe – a whole hell of a lot. This has led some archaeologists to surmise that groups of hunter gatherers came periodically as working parties, and were subsequently treated to enormously lavish feasts, either as part of ritual practice, as a reward for their labour, or both. Schmidt himself thought that these mass barbecues may have been part of a seasonal pattern of ritual sacrifice, which would gel with his ancient temple theory.\n\nThe fact that all the remains were wild animals, being mainly aurochs and gazelle, and that no traces of domesticated grain were discovered on the site, has been interpreted as evidence that Göbekli Tepe was exclusively a seasonal resort for nomadic hunter gatherers. There are problems with this, however. The first is that the lack of domesticated animal or plant species isn't diagnostic in this period. Becoming settled Neolithic farmers was a process which took thousands of years, and it's entirely possible that some experiments with settlement could have occurred here. In fact, for the Natufian sites around Göbekli Tepe, which are even earlier, this is exactly what's been found.\n\nDeveloping agriculture, a process sometimes referred to as Neolithisation, was not a quick or sudden development, so it's possible that Göbekli Tepe represents a transitional phase where wild animals were being managed rather than herded, and wild cereals, whilst being planted and harvested, had not yet developed into their domesticated varieties. Having said all that, ritual or secular feasting is still one of the most valid and plausible theories, but as we'll see, there are good reasons to think other things were going on as well.\n\n## Astronomical Observatory\n\nIn 2017, a pair of chemical engineers called Martin Sweatman and Dimitrios Tsikritis from the University of Edinburgh released a ground-breaking paper claiming they had strong evidence for Göbekli Tepe being an ancient astronomical observatory. In it, they said that they'd used advanced data analytics to determine that the pillars were lined up with important constellations, and that relief sculptures on these pillars lined up with the asterisms, or star signs, associated with those animals. They also suggested that pillar 43, which depicts a vulture and a headless person, was a record of the Younger Dryas comet impact.\n\nThis caused a sensation in both the media and academic circles, with the merits of the paper being hotly debated amongst scholars and lay people alike. Their paper so caught the public imagination that it's still heavily quoted in so-called alternative archaeology circles to this day, and Dr Sweatman appeared in Graham Hancock's highly problematic Ancient Apocalypse Netflix series to push his claims. There are, however, very serious issues with this interpretation.\n\nFirstly, there's the fact that the key assumption of the analysis is that one of the pillars depicting a scorpion actually represents the star sign Scorpius. There is no evidence to support this, and it is cited in the paper as a starting assumption. Archaeologists and anthropologists believe this to be highly questionable. The builders of Göbekli Tepe left no written records, and it's highly unlikely that we'll ever know what any of the animal symbols actually mean. Additionally, it's also highly unlikely that the interpretation of the Scorpius constellation was transmitted, unchanged, over so many thousands of years. And even if it was, there's no evidence whatsoever that this particular scorpion sculpture actually represents it.\n\nBut what about the fact that data analytics says it lines up with the constellation? Well, the fact is that it doesn't, really. The pillars in Göbekli Tepe are footed no more than 20cm into the bedrock, and there's ample evidence that they were moved, multiple times, by the users of the site. This puts serious stress on the idea that they were affixed with astronomical alignments in mind, not to mention the fact that nobody's really 100% sure of their original positions, so even if they do line up, which is questionable, this probably doesn't mean anything. On top of this, it's considered highly likely by the archaeological team, based on the T-shapes of the big pillars, as well as comparison to other sites, that Göbekli Tepe had a roof. This would make it difficult to look at the sky.\n\nThere are issues with the statistical base as well. In 2017, less than 5% of the site had been excavated, and only a part of this research had been published. So the sample of the pillar positions was not only based on an unsafe assumption, it was also so tiny that it couldn't possibly be considered diagnostic. It's also somewhat arbitrary, as there are far too many animals represented for the zodiac the Edinburgh engineers propose, and no satisfactory explanation for their selection of just a handful of them to form the basis of the theory.\n\nAs for the Younger Dryas comet impact, there's major issues with that too. The Younger Dryas event was a period of drastic cooling which occurred after the end of the Ice Age. The establishment theory is that cold meltwater flooded into the ocean, which caused a corresponding change in climate. More recent work has uncovered the very plausible possibility that a comet, or comet fragment, may have struck Greenland, causing a somewhat more sudden and catastrophic version of the Younger Dryas event. There's some good evidence for this, but it's very far from being conclusively proven.\n\nGiven that we don't know if the Younger Dryas impact actually happened, it seems a bit much to claim that pillar 43 depicts the event. This is especially true when we consider that there's a much simpler and more plausible theory for what's on the pillar. Fragments of modified skull have been found in Göbekli Tepe, suggesting an association with the very widespread Neolithic skull cult found in this area and across Europe. In sites nearby, evidence of de-carnation, or the removal of flesh from a body before burial, has been found in abundance. In both ancient and modern examples of this practice, vultures are an important part of the process, and depictions of these birds are frequently found at these so-called 'sky burial' sites. Given evidence of a head cult, as well as definite knowledge of the surrounding culture being involved in de-carnation, the dig team and their specialist anthropologists tentatively interpret the headless man and vulture on pillar 43 as being associated with funerary practice.\n\nThis isn't to say that it's impossible that Göbekli Tepe was associated with ancient astronomy. In fact, given what we know about Neolithic people, most archaeologists acknowledge that it's more likely than not that something of this sort would have been going on. The problem is that there's no good evidence for it as yet. Sweatman and Tsikritis' paper can't be used to interpret the site, as its fundamental assumptions and methodology are unsound. So yes, it's possible – even likely – that evidence of ancient astronomy will be found. It just hasn't been yet.\n\n## Ancient Brewery\n\nThere's a place in Göbekli Tepe called the 'rock garden'. This is basically a spoil heap, where archaeologists dumped the many articles of worked stone they found for later examination. Very recently, an archaeologist called Laura Dietrich decided to perform a systematic analysis of the finds in the rock garden and was astonished to discover that it contained more than 10,000 quirms, or grinding stones, and more than 650 stone vessels, some as big as 200 litres. According to Dietrich, this is the largest collection of grinders and vessels in the entire near eastern region.\n\nQuirm stones are used to grind wheat into flour. The massive number of these present at Göbekli Tepe raises some serious questions, not least about the common assumption that the consumption of processed grain was a post agriculture phenomenon. In fact, it's generally accepted now that ancient humans may have been eating processed carbs up to 100,000 years ago, which is potentially bad news for advocates of the paleo diet.\n\nGiven we already know that enormous feasts of meat took place at Göbekli Tepe, it makes sense that there'd be other foods being produced there as well. In the early days of the dig, it was thought that occasional production of beer and porridge might have occurred on the site, but the sheer scale of grinding equipment found actually suggests near industrial scale production, which significantly changes our picture of the site.\n\nOf course, archaeobotany – the study of ancient plants – is a difficult and enigmatic field. Grains and plant matter don't preserve as easily as bones do, and ancient peoples tended to use food for, well, eating, so they haven't tended to leave too much behind. More recently, however, pioneering archaeologists like Soultana Valamoti have developed methods for analysing the burnt remains of meals which have either clung to cooking vessels or been discarded in fire pits.\n\nAt Göbekli Tepe, these methods have uncovered a thriving flour and beer production centre, mostly using wild varieties of einkorn wheat – the exact variety which was first domesticated in the nearby fertile crescent to bring about the Neolithic revolution. The quantities suggested by the sheer number of grinding stones and massive stone vessels strongly indicate that, even though these are wild varieties, some sort of cultivation might have been going on near the site.\n\nThis has led some archaeologists to suggest that one of the functions of Göbekli Tepe may have been as a sort of food processing hub. Right down to modern times, people would bring grain to a central point to be ground, brewed, and baked, and it's plausible that Göbekli Tepe may have been one of these centres, along with or even as part of its sacred functions. There is a very long association between food production and religious activity, and Dietrich's discoveries seem to fit this pattern very well.\n\n## Current Thinking on Göbekli Tepe\n\nWhen the dig began in 1995, and Göbekli Tepe's amazing structures were first uncovered, it was heavily played up in the press and in some circles of academia as an anomaly. A history-breaking discovery which would upend everything we thought we knew about civilisation. While this is very sensational, it wasn't really true then and it isn't today. That's not to take away from the revolutionary nature of the site – it has re-written important aspects of the story of civilisation, but the fact is that Göbekli Tepe's wonder isn't borne of anomaly, but rather from it's being a spectacular example of a broader landscape of human habitation.\n\nAt this stage, and likely far into the future, Göbekli Tepe's purpose is largely an enigma. But over the last 27 years of excavation, our picture of what was actually going on there has clarified significantly. The most favoured theory at the present time is that Göbekli Tepe was a meeting place for highly mobile hunter gatherer groups. The purposes of these meetings would almost certainly have included ritual or religious elements – we know for certain that the sacred was ever present in the daily lives of people at this time. But what's also likely is that there were mundane, or secular purposes behind these meetings as well.\n\nArchaeologists like Jens Notroff have carefully speculated that Göbekli Tepe may have been a landmark site, built through communal effort by several different bands of hunter gatherers. It's possible that the animal iconography might have represented the various identities or totems of these groups, as the enclosures which have been uncovered seem to be organised loosely according to theme. They may have met to trade, to exchange ideas and broker marriages, to settle disputes, or to celebrate seasonal – and yes, perhaps even astronomical – festivals or rituals. These rituals involved lavish feasting, not just on meat, but also on massive quantities of good starchy porridge and, very probably, immoderate consumption of beer.\n\nIt's possible that some of these groups were more settled than others. It's even possible that one or more groups may have permanently settled down on the Harran plain below and begun experimenting with plant cultivation and rudimentary forms of animal management or animal husbandry, which would help to explain their atypical success at hunting. It's even possible, though unlikely, that some groups may have lived permanently in parts of the complex – there's no evidence for this as yet, but very little of the site has been excavated, and other indications are causing some researchers to lean this way.\n\nThere's also strong evidence to suggest that Göbekli Tepe may have been used as a funerary site as well. De-carnation and disarticulation of corpses, often with the aid of vultures, was a common practice in the area at the time, and it's possible that the dearly departed were stripped of flesh and disassembled in high-platformed sky burials, perhaps even making use of the crossbars of some of the pillars. Whether this happened or not, however, there is very strong evidence that the ritual decoration of skulls was taking place at the site, which makes it more likely that other funeral practices were also being done there.\n\nThere are still many unanswered questions, however. Without knowing what other kinds of architecture are present in the other enclosures – more than 16 have been found through magnetic and radar surveys – it's still very difficult to know how the buildings and monuments already uncovered fit into the complex as a whole. As well as this, the whole question of the burial of the site is now called into question by new evidence, so the story of its final days is yet to be fully understood. As well as this, newer finds, such as a carving of a man holding his own penis while standing next to some predatory animals, are yet to be satisfactorily interpreted. For now, these seem to deepen rather than clarify the mystery of what the site's artwork represents.\n\nGöbekli Tepe is an astonishingly rich and valuable site, and the dig, in archaeological terms, is still a very young one. So one thing we can say for sure is that Göbekli Tepe will continue to provide us with fascinating and intriguing insights into our deep past for many years to come.\n\n## Key Takeaways\n\n- Göbekli Tepe is a late PPN-A monument in Turkey, built between 9,600 and 8,800 BCE.\n- The site features circular enclosures with T-shaped pillars, likely representing male humans.\n- Recent findings suggest Göbekli Tepe was a multi-use site, including religious and secular purposes.\n- Evidence indicates large-scale food processing, including beer production, at Göbekli Tepe.\n- The site may have been a meeting place for hunter-gatherer groups, involving trade and rituals.\n\n## Frequently Asked Questions\n\n### When was Göbekli Tepe discovered?\n\nGöbekli Tepe was discovered in 1994.\n\n### What is the estimated age of Göbekli Tepe?\n\nThe earliest phases of the site are dated to the Pre-Pottery Neolithic A (PPN-A) period, between 9,600 and 8,800 BCE.\n\n### What are the central pillars of Göbekli Tepe believed to represent?\n\nThe two big central pillars are almost certainly depictions of male humans.\n\n### What animals are depicted on the pillars of Göbekli Tepe?\n\nThe pillars have relief carvings of various animals including snakes, foxes, cranes, storks, boar, gazelles, aurochs, vultures, and scorpions.\n\n### What is the current theory about the purpose of Göbekli Tepe?\n\nThe most favoured theory is that Göbekli Tepe was a meeting place for highly mobile hunter-gatherer groups, serving both ritual and secular purposes.\n\n### What evidence supports the idea that Göbekli Tepe was used for feasting?\n\nThere is a lot of animal bone at the site, suggesting lavish feasts of meat, as well as evidence of flour and beer production.\n\n### What is the significance of the 'rock garden' at Göbekli Tepe?\n\nThe 'rock garden' contains over 10,000 grinding stones and 650 stone vessels, indicating large-scale food processing, including beer production.\n\n### What is the evidence for Göbekli Tepe being an astronomical observatory?\n\nA 2017 paper by Martin Sweatman and Dimitrios Tsikritis proposed that the pillars align with constellations, but this theory is controversial and not widely accepted due to methodological issues.\n\n### What is the evidence for Göbekli Tepe being a funerary site?\n\nThere is evidence of de-carnation and skull cult practices, suggesting that funerary rituals may have taken place at the site.\n\n### What is the current understanding of the burial of Göbekli Tepe?\n\nThe site was not deliberately buried in one go; the burial process was likely gradual and complex, influenced by natural factors like earthquakes.\n\n## Sources\n\n- [Original MegaProjects video: The Ancient Mystery of Gobekli Tepe: Unraveling History's Greatest Puzzle](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fIgYQYDnBos)\n- [Hero image source](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/5d/Neolithic_bone_flute.jpg) by asgitner / openverse, by-sa.\n\n## Related Coverage" url: https://megaprojects.pub/article/ancient-mystery-gobekli-tepe-unraveling-historys-greatest-puzzle.md canonical: https://megaprojects.pub/article/ancient-mystery-gobekli-tepe-unraveling-historys-greatest-puzzle datePublished: 2023-02-13 dateModified: 2026-07-28 author: - name: Simon Whistler url: https://megaprojects.pub/author/simon-whistler publisher: MegaProjects image: "https://media.megaprojects.pub/cdn-cgi/image/width=600,height=338,fit=cover,quality=80,format=auto/articles/fIgYQYDnBos/hero.jpg" type: NewsArticle contentHash: 067c1efa87a42d9cda0d3eeddb7891f10fb64e34ccf03f9c434f28e879925f66 tokens: 6934 summaryUrl: https://megaprojects.pub/article/ancient-mystery-gobekli-tepe-unraveling-historys-greatest-puzzle.md.summary.md --- ## Ancient Observatory, Temple, or Brewery? In 1994, an archaeological site was discovered which would revolutionise our understanding of the origins of civilisation. This site is called Göbekli Tepe, a megalithic construction created after the end of the last Ice Age and abandoned some time in the Neolithic period. The revolutionary nature of the discovery, as well as the highly enigmatic nature of the finds, has led to an endless stream of breathless media hyperbole and a wealth of theories about its purpose, some shakier than others. There have been many theories about what Göbekli Tepe was for. It's been interpreted as a temple, an astronomical observatory, a gigantic barbecue area, the remnants of the lost civilisation of Atlantis, or the original location of the Garden of Eden. Amidst all this public interest, the teams of archaeologists digging Göbekli Tepe have been patiently unearthing new discoveries and inching our understanding of the monument ever so gradually forward. Our understanding of what was actually going on here has changed dramatically since the late great Klaus Schmidt first decided to take a punt on a barren, supposedly unpromising hilltop, and it's this changing picture we'll explore. ## The Site Göbekli Tepe is in the south-eastern part of modern day Turkey, on the highest point of the Germus mountains, overlooking the Harran plain and a tributary of the Euphrates. The area around Göbekli Tepe is known as the Urfa or Stone Hills region, and the earliest known evidence of permanent human settlement has been found here. Since Klaus Schmidt first rediscovered the site, debate has raged over its absolute chronology, with Schmidt insisting that the monument was built much earlier than the available evidence seemed to suggest. This debate now seems to have been resolved. The earliest phases of the site are firmly dated to the latter part of the period known as the Pre-Pottery Neolithic A, or PPN-A. This is a stretch of time between 9,600 and 8,800 BCE, just prior to the invention of pottery. This is a transitional period, when most people still moved in highly mobile hunter gatherer groups, but some evidence of permanent settlement and the beginnings of agriculture begins to appear. The later phases of construction are dated to PPN-B, between 8,800 and 7,000 BCE. The earlier PPN-A period is identified as originating from the Mesolithic Natufian culture. In this region, the Mesolithic period is considered to stretch between 18,000 and approximately 10,000 BCE. The later PPN-B cultures have a similar origin but are considered separately as their material culture suggests an influx of Levantine peoples from further north. Of course, only about 5-10% of the site has yet been excavated, so everything is still very much up for grabs, including the possibility that a much earlier dating may yet be in the offing. For now, though, all available evidence tells us that Göbekli Tepe is a late PPN-A monument. This makes sense, as the PPN-A period is characterised by permanent settlements, occasionally containing large stone monuments. Göbekli Tepe covers 9 hectares and is roughly 300 meters in diameter. The mound in which the monument stands is a man-made hill 15 meters in height. The older PPN-A construction is made up of circular enclosures between 10 and 20 meters in diameter, connected by limestone walls with benches set against them. Each circular enclosure contains a pair of 5 meter tall pillars in the centre, mounted in some sort of circular structure, and surrounded by smaller pillars. Each enclosure also seems to contain a communal building of a kind typical of the area. The two big central pillars are almost certainly depictions of male humans. The probable gender of these pillars is based on comparison to other, very similar pillars in the surrounding area. This T-shaped style of pillar is unique to the Urfa region but is repeated at a number of nearby sites of a similar period. In these other sites, both men and women are represented, but only males are ever depicted wearing belts. The central pillars in Göbekli Tepe are all wearing belts, which strongly suggests they're all male. Fox bones were found at the bottom of one pillar which depicts a man in what is possibly a fox fur, indicating that perhaps it was decorated with a real skin at some point, or possibly offered one as part of a ritual. Other pillars in the enclosures have highly skilful relief carvings of a variety of animals including snakes, foxes, cranes, storks, boar, gazelles, and aurochs – a wild cow which was the extinct ancestor of our domesticated varieties. There are also multiple representations of predators and, quite famously, vultures and scorpions. The consistency and quality of these carvings indicate that a more or less professional artisan class existed, as most archaeologists agree that the artwork is far too good to have been done on the spur of the moment by untrained individuals. Amongst all these animals are some abstract geometric symbols, some astonishingly skilful sculptures in deep relief, representations of people, some headless, interacting with animals, each other, or themselves, and even a later graffito of female genitalia. This is the only female representation in the site and is not considered original. For whatever reason, Göbekli Tepe is a very male space, with a multitude of ithyphallic representations. Ithyphallic is academic speak for 'erect penis'. Göbekli Tepe is a multi-layered site – in archaeology, this is referred to as a palimpsest. The earliest PPN-A level is called Layer III and overlaid above this is the PPN-B site, made about 1,000 years later. Here, the enclosures have shrunk somewhat, and have transitioned from circular to rectangular. The workmanship seems to have degraded somewhat, and most of these later enclosures are smaller and contain only the two central pillars, also on a much smaller scale, generally being 1.5 meters high. It used to be believed that at some point in the Neolithic, the users of Göbekli Tepe, for some mysterious reason, buried the entire monument, hiding it from view for thousands of years. That is not the current consensus among archaeologists. This part of Anatolia is very earthquake prone, and the site sits in a sort of hollow at the top of its plateau. According to Jens Notroff, one of the archaeologists on the site, the stratigraphy of the top of the mound, Layer I, is extremely complicated. While there are some clear signs of deliberate burial, these only seem to come up to the cross bars of the T-shaped pillars. Quite a lot of the rest of the backfill appears to be natural, so this story seems to be more complex, stretching over a much longer time, than initially thought. Very little of this interpretation is definite, however – it's just the most plausible theory right now. And this is a theme with Göbekli Tepe. What did all these animals and ithyphallic stuff mean? Why did the enclosures transition from circular to rectangular? Why the seeming reduction in quality of workmanship? Why does the site exist at all? Well, nobody really knows. There are a bunch of theories, though, so let's look at some of them now. ## Ancient Temple When Klaus Schmidt first began excavating the site, he came to the very reasonable conclusion that the effort required to create something of this size must have been motivated by ritual or religious reasons. This is a pretty safe theory for most monumental construction of the ancient past, and it matches up nicely with the later monumental structures we actually have written records for. So when he declared Göbekli Tepe as the world's first temple, this seemed reasonable at the time. Recent discoveries, however, have cast doubt on this idea. While it's still almost certain that Göbekli Tepe had a religious function, it's probably not a dedicated temple, and it's definitely not the first of its kind. Karahan Tepe, found nearby, is 300 years older than Göbekli Tepe, and bears many of the same hallmarks. Its construction is obviously different, using wood rather than stone, and containing a different style of figures, but the basic idea of connected enclosures and animal and human iconography makes it very clear to archaeologists that Karahan Tepe represents a stage in the evolution of monumental sites in this area, leading eventually to the massive pillars and pits of Göbekli Tepe. While nobody has any serious problems with the site as a place of worship, what's more questionable is the idea that it was a purely religious site. Schmidt wasn't able to find good evidence for contemporaneous permanent settlement anywhere near Göbekli Tepe. As far as his team could make out, there was no reliable water source and no burials, and this view coloured their interpretation of much of the evidence. Schmidt's assumption was that if nobody was living at or near the site, then they must only have returned seasonally in order to perform sacred rituals, and to be fair, nothing else really fits very well with the picture he had. Schmidt unfortunately died in 2014, so he wasn't able to see the subsequent work which cast a new light on some of these issues. While he had noted substantial rainwater storage cisterns on the site, this still chimed, in his mind, with temporary occupation rather than permanent settlement. What he didn't know, however, was that climatic analysis of the area would uncover the fact that the water table was much higher in the Neolithic period, and that this makes it likely that dried out springs nearby would have been active at the time Göbekli Tepe was in use. This means that archaeologists are now looking at Göbekli Tepe as more of a hybrid or multi-use site, which makes more sense as areas where the sacred is mixed with the mundane are much more typical of the Neolithic. The main pillar (no pun intended) of the ancient temple theory is the amount of labour required to build Göbekli Tepe. Schmidt made labour estimates based on the experiments done with the giant heads, or Moai, on Easter Island, which found that hundreds of workers would have been required. Experiments on the actual site of Göbekli Tepe, however, using period appropriate materials and tools, found that even the largest pillars could have been quarried and constructed by 10 – 14 people. This, remember, is also the number of people who could comfortably fit in the site's communal buildings, and seems to suggest a somewhat more domestic, though still sacred, purpose for these structures. ## Ancient Barbecue Area There is a lot of animal bone in Göbekli Tepe – a whole hell of a lot. This has led some archaeologists to surmise that groups of hunter gatherers came periodically as working parties, and were subsequently treated to enormously lavish feasts, either as part of ritual practice, as a reward for their labour, or both. Schmidt himself thought that these mass barbecues may have been part of a seasonal pattern of ritual sacrifice, which would gel with his ancient temple theory. The fact that all the remains were wild animals, being mainly aurochs and gazelle, and that no traces of domesticated grain were discovered on the site, has been interpreted as evidence that Göbekli Tepe was exclusively a seasonal resort for nomadic hunter gatherers. There are problems with this, however. The first is that the lack of domesticated animal or plant species isn't diagnostic in this period. Becoming settled Neolithic farmers was a process which took thousands of years, and it's entirely possible that some experiments with settlement could have occurred here. In fact, for the Natufian sites around Göbekli Tepe, which are even earlier, this is exactly what's been found. Developing agriculture, a process sometimes referred to as Neolithisation, was not a quick or sudden development, so it's possible that Göbekli Tepe represents a transitional phase where wild animals were being managed rather than herded, and wild cereals, whilst being planted and harvested, had not yet developed into their domesticated varieties. Having said all that, ritual or secular feasting is still one of the most valid and plausible theories, but as we'll see, there are good reasons to think other things were going on as well. ## Astronomical Observatory In 2017, a pair of chemical engineers called Martin Sweatman and Dimitrios Tsikritis from the University of Edinburgh released a ground-breaking paper claiming they had strong evidence for Göbekli Tepe being an ancient astronomical observatory. In it, they said that they'd used advanced data analytics to determine that the pillars were lined up with important constellations, and that relief sculptures on these pillars lined up with the asterisms, or star signs, associated with those animals. They also suggested that pillar 43, which depicts a vulture and a headless person, was a record of the Younger Dryas comet impact. This caused a sensation in both the media and academic circles, with the merits of the paper being hotly debated amongst scholars and lay people alike. Their paper so caught the public imagination that it's still heavily quoted in so-called alternative archaeology circles to this day, and Dr Sweatman appeared in Graham Hancock's highly problematic Ancient Apocalypse Netflix series to push his claims. There are, however, very serious issues with this interpretation. Firstly, there's the fact that the key assumption of the analysis is that one of the pillars depicting a scorpion actually represents the star sign Scorpius. There is no evidence to support this, and it is cited in the paper as a starting assumption. Archaeologists and anthropologists believe this to be highly questionable. The builders of Göbekli Tepe left no written records, and it's highly unlikely that we'll ever know what any of the animal symbols actually mean. Additionally, it's also highly unlikely that the interpretation of the Scorpius constellation was transmitted, unchanged, over so many thousands of years. And even if it was, there's no evidence whatsoever that this particular scorpion sculpture actually represents it. But what about the fact that data analytics says it lines up with the constellation? Well, the fact is that it doesn't, really. The pillars in Göbekli Tepe are footed no more than 20cm into the bedrock, and there's ample evidence that they were moved, multiple times, by the users of the site. This puts serious stress on the idea that they were affixed with astronomical alignments in mind, not to mention the fact that nobody's really 100% sure of their original positions, so even if they do line up, which is questionable, this probably doesn't mean anything. On top of this, it's considered highly likely by the archaeological team, based on the T-shapes of the big pillars, as well as comparison to other sites, that Göbekli Tepe had a roof. This would make it difficult to look at the sky. There are issues with the statistical base as well. In 2017, less than 5% of the site had been excavated, and only a part of this research had been published. So the sample of the pillar positions was not only based on an unsafe assumption, it was also so tiny that it couldn't possibly be considered diagnostic. It's also somewhat arbitrary, as there are far too many animals represented for the zodiac the Edinburgh engineers propose, and no satisfactory explanation for their selection of just a handful of them to form the basis of the theory. As for the Younger Dryas comet impact, there's major issues with that too. The Younger Dryas event was a period of drastic cooling which occurred after the end of the Ice Age. The establishment theory is that cold meltwater flooded into the ocean, which caused a corresponding change in climate. More recent work has uncovered the very plausible possibility that a comet, or comet fragment, may have struck Greenland, causing a somewhat more sudden and catastrophic version of the Younger Dryas event. There's some good evidence for this, but it's very far from being conclusively proven. Given that we don't know if the Younger Dryas impact actually happened, it seems a bit much to claim that pillar 43 depicts the event. This is especially true when we consider that there's a much simpler and more plausible theory for what's on the pillar. Fragments of modified skull have been found in Göbekli Tepe, suggesting an association with the very widespread Neolithic skull cult found in this area and across Europe. In sites nearby, evidence of de-carnation, or the removal of flesh from a body before burial, has been found in abundance. In both ancient and modern examples of this practice, vultures are an important part of the process, and depictions of these birds are frequently found at these so-called 'sky burial' sites. Given evidence of a head cult, as well as definite knowledge of the surrounding culture being involved in de-carnation, the dig team and their specialist anthropologists tentatively interpret the headless man and vulture on pillar 43 as being associated with funerary practice. This isn't to say that it's impossible that Göbekli Tepe was associated with ancient astronomy. In fact, given what we know about Neolithic people, most archaeologists acknowledge that it's more likely than not that something of this sort would have been going on. The problem is that there's no good evidence for it as yet. Sweatman and Tsikritis' paper can't be used to interpret the site, as its fundamental assumptions and methodology are unsound. So yes, it's possible – even likely – that evidence of ancient astronomy will be found. It just hasn't been yet. ## Ancient Brewery There's a place in Göbekli Tepe called the 'rock garden'. This is basically a spoil heap, where archaeologists dumped the many articles of worked stone they found for later examination. Very recently, an archaeologist called Laura Dietrich decided to perform a systematic analysis of the finds in the rock garden and was astonished to discover that it contained more than 10,000 quirms, or grinding stones, and more than 650 stone vessels, some as big as 200 litres. According to Dietrich, this is the largest collection of grinders and vessels in the entire near eastern region. Quirm stones are used to grind wheat into flour. The massive number of these present at Göbekli Tepe raises some serious questions, not least about the common assumption that the consumption of processed grain was a post agriculture phenomenon. In fact, it's generally accepted now that ancient humans may have been eating processed carbs up to 100,000 years ago, which is potentially bad news for advocates of the paleo diet. Given we already know that enormous feasts of meat took place at Göbekli Tepe, it makes sense that there'd be other foods being produced there as well. In the early days of the dig, it was thought that occasional production of beer and porridge might have occurred on the site, but the sheer scale of grinding equipment found actually suggests near industrial scale production, which significantly changes our picture of the site. Of course, archaeobotany – the study of ancient plants – is a difficult and enigmatic field. Grains and plant matter don't preserve as easily as bones do, and ancient peoples tended to use food for, well, eating, so they haven't tended to leave too much behind. More recently, however, pioneering archaeologists like Soultana Valamoti have developed methods for analysing the burnt remains of meals which have either clung to cooking vessels or been discarded in fire pits. At Göbekli Tepe, these methods have uncovered a thriving flour and beer production centre, mostly using wild varieties of einkorn wheat – the exact variety which was first domesticated in the nearby fertile crescent to bring about the Neolithic revolution. The quantities suggested by the sheer number of grinding stones and massive stone vessels strongly indicate that, even though these are wild varieties, some sort of cultivation might have been going on near the site. This has led some archaeologists to suggest that one of the functions of Göbekli Tepe may have been as a sort of food processing hub. Right down to modern times, people would bring grain to a central point to be ground, brewed, and baked, and it's plausible that Göbekli Tepe may have been one of these centres, along with or even as part of its sacred functions. There is a very long association between food production and religious activity, and Dietrich's discoveries seem to fit this pattern very well. ## Current Thinking on Göbekli Tepe When the dig began in 1995, and Göbekli Tepe's amazing structures were first uncovered, it was heavily played up in the press and in some circles of academia as an anomaly. A history-breaking discovery which would upend everything we thought we knew about civilisation. While this is very sensational, it wasn't really true then and it isn't today. That's not to take away from the revolutionary nature of the site – it has re-written important aspects of the story of civilisation, but the fact is that Göbekli Tepe's wonder isn't borne of anomaly, but rather from it's being a spectacular example of a broader landscape of human habitation. At this stage, and likely far into the future, Göbekli Tepe's purpose is largely an enigma. But over the last 27 years of excavation, our picture of what was actually going on there has clarified significantly. The most favoured theory at the present time is that Göbekli Tepe was a meeting place for highly mobile hunter gatherer groups. The purposes of these meetings would almost certainly have included ritual or religious elements – we know for certain that the sacred was ever present in the daily lives of people at this time. But what's also likely is that there were mundane, or secular purposes behind these meetings as well. Archaeologists like Jens Notroff have carefully speculated that Göbekli Tepe may have been a landmark site, built through communal effort by several different bands of hunter gatherers. It's possible that the animal iconography might have represented the various identities or totems of these groups, as the enclosures which have been uncovered seem to be organised loosely according to theme. They may have met to trade, to exchange ideas and broker marriages, to settle disputes, or to celebrate seasonal – and yes, perhaps even astronomical – festivals or rituals. These rituals involved lavish feasting, not just on meat, but also on massive quantities of good starchy porridge and, very probably, immoderate consumption of beer. It's possible that some of these groups were more settled than others. It's even possible that one or more groups may have permanently settled down on the Harran plain below and begun experimenting with plant cultivation and rudimentary forms of animal management or animal husbandry, which would help to explain their atypical success at hunting. It's even possible, though unlikely, that some groups may have lived permanently in parts of the complex – there's no evidence for this as yet, but very little of the site has been excavated, and other indications are causing some researchers to lean this way. There's also strong evidence to suggest that Göbekli Tepe may have been used as a funerary site as well. De-carnation and disarticulation of corpses, often with the aid of vultures, was a common practice in the area at the time, and it's possible that the dearly departed were stripped of flesh and disassembled in high-platformed sky burials, perhaps even making use of the crossbars of some of the pillars. Whether this happened or not, however, there is very strong evidence that the ritual decoration of skulls was taking place at the site, which makes it more likely that other funeral practices were also being done there. There are still many unanswered questions, however. Without knowing what other kinds of architecture are present in the other enclosures – more than 16 have been found through magnetic and radar surveys – it's still very difficult to know how the buildings and monuments already uncovered fit into the complex as a whole. As well as this, the whole question of the burial of the site is now called into question by new evidence, so the story of its final days is yet to be fully understood. As well as this, newer finds, such as a carving of a man holding his own penis while standing next to some predatory animals, are yet to be satisfactorily interpreted. For now, these seem to deepen rather than clarify the mystery of what the site's artwork represents. Göbekli Tepe is an astonishingly rich and valuable site, and the dig, in archaeological terms, is still a very young one. So one thing we can say for sure is that Göbekli Tepe will continue to provide us with fascinating and intriguing insights into our deep past for many years to come. ## Key Takeaways - Göbekli Tepe is a late PPN-A monument in Turkey, built between 9,600 and 8,800 BCE. - The site features circular enclosures with T-shaped pillars, likely representing male humans. - Recent findings suggest Göbekli Tepe was a multi-use site, including religious and secular purposes. - Evidence indicates large-scale food processing, including beer production, at Göbekli Tepe. - The site may have been a meeting place for hunter-gatherer groups, involving trade and rituals. ## Frequently Asked Questions ### When was Göbekli Tepe discovered? Göbekli Tepe was discovered in 1994. ### What is the estimated age of Göbekli Tepe? The earliest phases of the site are dated to the Pre-Pottery Neolithic A (PPN-A) period, between 9,600 and 8,800 BCE. ### What are the central pillars of Göbekli Tepe believed to represent? The two big central pillars are almost certainly depictions of male humans. ### What animals are depicted on the pillars of Göbekli Tepe? The pillars have relief carvings of various animals including snakes, foxes, cranes, storks, boar, gazelles, aurochs, vultures, and scorpions. ### What is the current theory about the purpose of Göbekli Tepe? The most favoured theory is that Göbekli Tepe was a meeting place for highly mobile hunter-gatherer groups, serving both ritual and secular purposes. ### What evidence supports the idea that Göbekli Tepe was used for feasting? There is a lot of animal bone at the site, suggesting lavish feasts of meat, as well as evidence of flour and beer production. ### What is the significance of the 'rock garden' at Göbekli Tepe? The 'rock garden' contains over 10,000 grinding stones and 650 stone vessels, indicating large-scale food processing, including beer production. ### What is the evidence for Göbekli Tepe being an astronomical observatory? A 2017 paper by Martin Sweatman and Dimitrios Tsikritis proposed that the pillars align with constellations, but this theory is controversial and not widely accepted due to methodological issues. ### What is the evidence for Göbekli Tepe being a funerary site? There is evidence of de-carnation and skull cult practices, suggesting that funerary rituals may have taken place at the site. ### What is the current understanding of the burial of Göbekli Tepe? The site was not deliberately buried in one go; the burial process was likely gradual and complex, influenced by natural factors like earthquakes. ## Sources - [Original MegaProjects video: The Ancient Mystery of Gobekli Tepe: Unraveling History's Greatest Puzzle](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fIgYQYDnBos) - [Hero image source](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/5d/Neolithic_bone_flute.jpg) by asgitner / openverse, by-sa. ## Related Coverage