ITCHY FEET TRAVELS

Sanliurfa, Turkey

June 30, 2023

A few miles from Sanliurfa, among the intensively cultivated farmlands is a hill called Gobekli Tepe in local parlance which translates to bellied hill. It is here that an astonishing discovery was made almost sixty years ago, upended the then-held views on ancient megalithic structures. Excavations that followed unveiled a series of man-made buildings. It is believed that the people built one structure and then when it was buried, built others more or less on top of the previous ones, thus helping create the shape of a rounded hill. But the most incredible fact? These have been dated between 9500-9000 BCE. They are twelve thousand years old! Older than any structure found yet, this was made before pottery, before the wheel, before writing, before metal tools, before mankind settled into a sedentary lifestyle. This was before Stonehenge. My mind can barely take it in.

Why did the hunter-gatherers make this? Was it meant to be a place of worship? Was it meant to be a place for the dead? Did people live in these dwellings? There are theories hotly debated to this day but no conclusive one. It is utterly fascinating. I go up the long, planked walkway agog with curiosity.

There it is! Eyes wide open, mouth agape I try to take it all in. Sheltered under a vast awning are four roughly circular structures, similar in design. Each has two large T-shaped flattened pillars in the center standing upright. Surrounding them are smaller upright pillars arranged at points along the circumference, oriented along the radius. The signage is good. The buildings are labeled A through D with diagrams showing the upright pillars as well the walls. It is easy to correlate what I see with the diagrams.

Building A seems to be the smallest and is more U-shaped than circular. What is even more intriguing are the carvings on some of the upright stones. I see a horned bull, a fox and a bird. On another pillar is a crawling four-legged creature with a bulbous head.  What is that supposed to be? Another pillar shows wavy arrows pointing down. Are they showing direction? Do they represent rivers or water? On the same pillar on the adjacent side is a pattern like a net. I stare and wonder and stare again.

Next to this is building B. Again, the circular layout, again the two upright largest pillars. And again, the smaller upright pillars aligned with the radii, set along the perimeter. Here also on one of the taller uprights is the same figure of a fox. One of the smaller uprights has the head of a horned animal – a bull perhaps? The sign says this building has a terrazzo floor but I cannot tell from the viewing platform. At the center is a rectangular basin-like structure with a central cavity. What could it be? What was it used for? I am bubbling over with questions but have no answers.

Rounding the curve is building D, the largest of these structures, more oval than round. The two uprights are tallest just as before and yet again, one of them has that same figure of a fox. But this time, there is more. A V-shaped band extends across the plane ending in a fringe. Is that a hand and those, the fingers? One of the peripheral pillars is lavishly carved. The easily recognizable figures of vultures and scorpions swarm over the surface. It even has carvings on the thinner face of the pillar.  A crouched feline perhaps?

There are more carvings in this building than the others it seems – maybe as befitted the largest structure. Scorpions, foxes and ants crawl over one pillar. A flat stone along the shelf of the perimeter shows an etched design, quite different from the animal figures. I have no idea what it portrays. My mind is on hyper-drive but with no concrete theories it churns like a hamster on its wheel.

The last one completing the circle is building C. According to the sign, the three concentric walls are laid on an artificially smoothed limestone bedrock, the inner walls believed to be more recent. Yet again, the same fox on one of the tall central uprights and what looks like a gaggle of geese on another upright.

But the edge of another pillar shows the crouching figure of an animal in far more than bas-relief. A predator and below it, its prey?

The questions raised by this site have raised yet more questions, rather than answers. The answer to this riddle may have to wait a while yet. Not only is the site still being excavated, but this is an area riddled with such sites, some known but many as yet unknown. Ground-penetrating radar and geomagnetic surveys have shown that sixteen or more other megaliths remain buried, scattered in twenty two acres in these surroundings areas. The one acre that has been excavated is just 5% of a gigantic Stone Age site. Who knows what lies yet undiscovered? The scrubby bush and the green fields may hold more surprises in store as might the shimmering Mesopotamian plains to the south that bake under the sun.