Tuesday, August 11, 2015

Archaeology coolness - Gobekli Tepe

Gobekli Tepe is the oldest known temple in the world.  Built with stone tools in the Neolithic, about 9000 BC (thus antedating the earliest known permanent sites of human habitation, and even the domestication of cereal grains and agriculture), the over 22 acre site comprises more than 20 rings and rectangles of standing stones, some enclosing paved floors.  There is no evidence so far of permanent human occupation of the site, but plenty of evidence of the workers' lunches (gazelle, deer, pig, goose, etc). After 1000 years of use, the site was deliberately buried and abandoned.


(These pictures borrowed from the Smithsonian.com article linked above.)