Andrew Curry on "The World's First Temple?"
- By Jesse Rhodes
- Smithsonian.com, November 01, 2008, Subscribe
Andrew Curry is a professional journalist based in Germany with degrees in international relations and Russian and East European studies and is a contributing editor to Archaeology magazine. You can find more of his work at www.andrewcurry.com. Rebecca Miller
What drew you to this story? Can you describe its genesis?
Since I'm based in Berlin, I talk a lot with German archaeologists. There was a lot of buzz over here about Gobekli Tepe, and this story had been reported in Germany, but not in the English language media. Because it's such an incredible find, Schmidt's under a lot of pressure, so it took me about a year to arrange my visit for a time when he was digging in Urfa.
What was your favorite moment while covering Gobekli Tepe?
Watching the sun come up over the stones was an incredible moment. They're huge, and it's hard to imagine how primitive hunters carved them without metal tools. And yet there is a sense of mystery about them that I found a bit off-putting. I wanted to feel some deep connection or resonance, but the symbols and shapes are so far removed from anything I am familiar with that I felt like a total stranger.
Have any problems arisen since they started excavating the site?
Schmidt had good reason to be worried about the press: A major German magazine ran a cover story on the site last year suggesting it was the historical basis for the Biblical story about the "Garden of Eden." Because Muslims consider Adam a Muslim prophet (like Abraham, Moses and Jesus) when the Turkish media got a hold of the story there was a lot of pressure for him to stop digging at "Adam's birthplace"—a holy site. So Schmidt was very intent on stressing to me that the area was a very nice place to live in prehistoric times, but not literally "paradise," for fear I'd give the misunderstanding new legs.
Were there any interesting moments that didn't make it to the final draft?
I also spent some time talking to people in Urfa about the site. Most locals have never been there, and have a lot of strange ideas about it. Most of all, they see it as a way to bring in tourists. Urfa is in a fairly poor part of Turkey, so cultural tourism is a big deal. But the site's not ready for a flood of visitors—it's still being excavated, it's on a hill at the end of a bad dirt road, and the only people there are archaeologists, who are working as fast as they can to figure out what the site is all about and don't have a lot of time to show visitors around. When they're not excavating, the archaeologists cover a lot of the pillars up with stones to protect them from the elements. One local tourism official asked me why Schmidt was working so slowly, and when I thought he could start sending tour buses to the top of Gobekli Tepe. I didn't have a good answer. Schmidt's trying to find money to build a visitor's center nearby, and perhaps build walkways or something so that tourists can see the stones without damaging the site.
Are there any theories about what led to the site's abandonment?
Schmidt thinks society outgrew it, sort of. His theory is that they served the needs of a hunter-gatherer culture somehow, and as those hunter-gatherers developed agriculture and domesticated animals their spiritual needs changed radically enough that the temples at Gobekli Tepe no longer served their needs.
Why was the site initially dismissed by academics?
The big broken stones on top of the hill—actually fragments of pillars—were mistaken for medieval gravestones, and the academics doing the original survey in the 1960s simply didn't look any deeper. The site is remote enough that only a few archaeologists had ever been there. Usually prehistoric settlements in the region are found near water sources or rivers, so finding something like this on top of a dry plateau was really surprising.
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Comments (32)
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This is in response to Joe on Dec. 13.. "people like this" wow there is a great deal of judgement in your comment.. I can appreciate your discomfort and I am certainly not saying I am in agreement with the post you are talking about yet I value what it adds to the conversation. May I ask why you fear your children's exposure to contrasting ideas? I would urge you to appreciate the growth that is born out of contrast and trust your children's ability to discern what is truth for them. And perhaps their brilliant, individual take on something will inspire someone else and so on and so on in this beautiful co-creative dance we are participating in. Personally, I feel our public schools are more concerned with churning out people who follow orders and believe everything that is presented to them rather than encouraging original thought. What will it take for our scientists to embrace this discovery and the implications that the history of man on Earth is much longer and more varied than previously acknowledged? What might we learn or remember that will assist us is solving the great challenges we face today? I thank you for prompting me to ask these questions.
Posted by LisaElizabeth on February 2,2012 | 11:54 AM
I wonder if there is a way to help the financial side of the excavations in order to complete the exposition of the site for a later and I guess much larger time for analisys?.
If there is such an innitiative, I would like to take part of it, if possible.
Greater coverage and more academic interests may help for this purpose.
Posted by Luis Guembes on December 14,2011 | 05:53 PM
The comment by Bruce Horton (March 6, 2011) is a good example of what science is up against. People like this send their kids to school with your kids, and insist that what they believe is put out in front of your kids as coequal to science.
Posted by Joe Bullmer on December 13,2011 | 11:00 AM
I believe there are many great sites yet to be discovered, over the thousand of years many site we lost and buried, just look at the great cities of South America that are buried.
Who knows what great treasures are hiding from us, with satellites and deep ground ultra sound detection, we are just scratching the surface of our history!
Posted by Richard Martin on November 25,2011 | 11:13 AM
Not being an archaeologist I can't give answers, only bring questions. First: why is the largest portion of the column on the top? Any natural carved pillar gets smaller on top. These actually extend beyond the pillar. If I were going to build a bridge this would be what I'd do. If the "ceiling" or roof were natural materials like wood, they would be long gone. Could an analysis of the rubble and sand show signs of wood fibre?
Second: Just last night I watched a program about the unearthing of a ship wreck in the Black Sea on the other side of Turkey.The possible changes, catastrophic or slow, connected to the Black Sea and the peoples nearby may be related to this structure.
Third: The sophistication of many of the carvings on the pillars don't remind me of the work of a hunter-gatherer culture that only moves from place to place, never building, carving only amulets to hold or wear around the neck with necklaces of shells and beads. They seem abstract due to a fullness of technique and a long history of sculptural art and building history rather than to an ignorance. Where are the stone carvings that could predate these ones? Were all the previous carved structures made from wood and so disappeared?
Fourth: The animals they sculpt may be wild but they don't scare you to look at them. Nor do the animals painted many thousands of years earlier around 33,000 years, in caves all around Europe. Humans that can do art at those levels and for so many thousands of years, are perfectly capable of painting and sculpting gargoyle "fear" creatures, grimacing faces, pain, agonizing death scenes. The idea that this site was built to placate terrifying gods doesn't seem right here.
I'd give anything to actually make the trip to see these signs of our race, when we built more than we destroyed.
Posted by Joan on November 13,2011 | 11:05 AM
Absolutely amazing discovery, what disturbs me is we immediatelly want to label it something like a "temple" when we have no idea what it really is. Questions like why would it not just be abandoned instead of being covered up,almost like leaving it for when someone returns later.
Nothing springs from nothing, the people, the skills, the material needed would take time to accrue. What prompted its building at a time when primitive man needed all of his time and energy just to survive as a hunter gatherer, what would cause them to stop, learn skills, and build such a monument?
This could not be the builders first building, it appears too sophisticated, where were earlier models?
One thought that occurred to me is that when people had no use for a construction, from the colliseum in rome to the Sphinx, they simply left them, the didn't cover them up, many times they reused the building material. Maybe this was built by someone not a local, someone who didn't want it either discovered or reused, who when they were through with it found burying it quite appropriate.
So many questions, so few real answers, I look forward to reading more about amazing find, we should not jump to conclusions.
Mike
Posted by Mike Hancock on July 24,2011 | 03:43 PM
A great find, yes. I think we need to leave the bible out of this dig and this discussion of the dig, except to say that this dig is perhaps further evidence that the human race did not begin in the garden of eden. It is for us here and now a step farther back in human history, and it closes a little bit more the gap in the record between neolithic humans and those responsible for Lascaux and the other painted caves.
Another commenter suggested that space men built Gobleki Tepe. I think this is nuts. I think that believing that space men did it reveals a disbelief in the ingenuity and vast imagination of human beings. We as a race have done incredible things when rightly inspired. One person with the right idea at the right time can alter a society.
Posted by chris on June 19,2011 | 08:51 PM
This is a great find and I hope in time it is all unearthed and revealed. Even so unless the builders documented this in some sort of way that is readable we will never know for sure the how and whys of this place. Educated guesses sometimes seem like they might be right. I don't think I would necessarily call this place a temple just yet when it so much resembles what may be a Chieftains Spa or just a tribal hang out! Good luck working with this the rest of the way which will continue i'm sure for years.
Posted by Gerald Flaherty on June 2,2011 | 02:22 PM
Geographical and historical records found in the Bible, though often challenged, have invariably proven to be accurate and correct. Therefore the Bible description of people before the flood may well explain who built Göbekli Tepe. According to the book of Genesis, disobedient materialized angels fathered took human females and fathered (hybrid) offspring. These 'fellers' had extraordinary capabilities and dominated over other humans. Perhaps this could explain some of the mystery connected with this amazing site... or add more to it!
Posted by Cliff on May 5,2011 | 01:51 PM
I was intreged by the pictures I saw of this dig,my first impresion was and still is that this is a pre Noahs flood remains asit has been buried by flood waters and all wood material washed away.all the world was compleatly changed by all the worlds water roaring over the landskape.the earth was cut in two by the huge comet that past Mars and sucked all the water off of the planet and on comming around to Earth it took 40 days to close on Earth raining all this time then smashing into the Earth cutting half the Earth off from what is now the south pole to Alaska,some of which remains under Alaska today.most of the debrey blasted into the sky created the Moon and near all the water and material fell back to the Earth and changed the entire landskape and creating the ociens and burying the old world.The old world just peeks out in some places.
Posted by Bruce Horton on March 6,2011 | 08:21 PM
I think that the true nature of this site and others like it around the world will be shrouded in mystery for some time to come.The beliefs or assumptions that we have about ancient beliefs and what motivated mankind to build such structures is very limited and is largely based upon what the academia has taught us as being acceptable.We may just be in for a surprise if the truth about these things is ever revealed.I find it hard to believe that these monolithic structures where built only to appease the gods unless there was some serious impetus inspiring or helping these people to do so,something beyond fear of a bad hunt of what lies beyond death.Why would men involved in hunting and gathering suddenly feel compelled to build such buildings with no prior knowledge of skills to do so?
Posted by JasonScotPatrick on January 6,2011 | 10:38 AM
is there a site where i can see better more detailed photos of this site. if so please email the site to me thank you
Posted by Paul Woodring on December 20,2010 | 02:32 PM
the fact that this site is the oldest discovered to date .should open our eyes and minds to the fact that this site may help us to find just how much knowledge we have lost over the last 12000 years.just like the pyramids we still have no idea how they were built. i hope that in my lifetime we rediscover all the knowledge we have lost over the years.
Posted by Paul Woodring on December 20,2010 | 02:29 PM
when the articles (perhaps not this) say on a stele vultures are hoovering over a scorpion, they are actually also hovering over a dead vulture (that is on the same panel) my interpretation was , vultures do also eat dead vultures, (theres a dead vulture there on the upper pane) and in the end they even eat scorpions. since i am quite sure of either, but have no such info and have never seen it confirmed, my impression is at least part of the original intention was to educate youth about well nature, and obviously , since that is so widespread, about the sky burrial as well. interestingly i would infer that the starts of agriculture are being made when this site is erected, and that it may even be an expression to confront the first agricultural dogma (that may well have been part of a 'diplomatic' oral tribal tradition in the region) that agriculture would make for a 'greater culture'. an argument i would guess comes up quite naturally on so to say 'tribal elder' level. in fact more recent iniatives of 'civillisation' like eg. the christian mission featured still the very same argument prominently.
Posted by onix on December 3,2010 | 09:22 PM
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