Party at Gobekli Tepe
I would love to go back in time to visit Gobekli Tepe…
‘World’s oldest temple’ was a happenin’ place
Ancient blades of volcanic rock hint that people came from far and wide 11,000 years ago
Gobekli Tepe is in southern Turkey near the modern-day city of Urfa. It contains at least 20 stone rings (circles within a circle) that date back more than 11,000 years. T-shaped limestone blocks line the circles and reliefs are carved on them. Long ago, people would fill in the outer circle with debris before building a new circle within.
By Owen Jarus (msnbc.com)
Ancient blades made of volcanic rock that were discovered at what may be the world’s oldest temple suggest that the site in Turkey was the hub of a pilgrimage that attracted a cosmopolitan group of people some 11,000 years ago.
The researchers matched up about 130 of the blades, which would have been used as tools, with their source volcanoes, finding people would have come from far and wide to congregate at the ancient temple site, Gobekli Tepe, in southern Turkey. The blades are made of obsidian, a volcanic glass rich with silica, which forms when lava cools quickly.
The research was presented in February at the 7th International Conference on the Chipped and Ground Stone Industries of the Pre-Pottery Neolithic in Barcelona, Spain. [ Photos of Gobekli Tepe ]…
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Zarin on 21 Mar 2012 at 9:43 am #
Gobekli Tepe is turning out to be quite a conundrum for archeology. It opens up the time line for the start of civilization by another 5,000 or more years. This approximate dating to around 9500 BCE gives greater credulity to Plato’s timeline for Atlantis. For Atlantis existing at approximately the same time or contemporaneous with Gobekli Tepe. The timeline was once considered to be a major argument against the Atlantis reality. Primarily, that no civilization existed that far back in time. That the oldest aspects of Gobekli Tepe are the more sophisticated, adds even more to the mystery. Whether or not this is a construction of Hunter-gatherers is still unsettled as the site is too large and far too sedentary. You have to feed and water such a large complex. Gobekli Tepe begins to resemble a large urban complex with each uncovering. With only 10% uncovered, I suspect many more surprises and revelations are yet to unfold.