Turkey the land of human history’s new beginnings?
by
Damien F. Mackey
So, about a millennium and a half after
humanity
had first emerged upon the earth, from
the dust,
humanity again emerged thereupon,
this time from the Ark.
“Is Turkey’s Göbekli Tepe the Beginning
of Human History?”, asks Jacqueline Swartz (2025):
Well, yes and no, would be my answer.
Let me explain.
About a millennium
and a half after humankind had appeared on the face of the earth, beginning in
Eden, which was not in what we now call Turkey, but in what we now call Old Jerusalem:
Where Paradise was
located
(2)
Where Paradise was located
there
occurred a massive Flood – the Genesis (Noachic) Flood.
The Flood’s only survivors were the “eight persons” (I Peter
3:20), or ancestral progenitors (Noah and his wife, and Noah’s three sons and
their wives), and however many others had been enclosed with them within the
Ark.
Humankind’s second chance
So, about a millennium and a half after humanity had first
emerged upon the earth, from the dust, humanity again emerged thereupon, this
time from the Ark.
The location of the Ark’s landing has best been identified
(so I think) as Karaca Dağ in SE Turkey:
Noah’s
Ark Mountain
(7) Noah's Ark
Mountain | Damien Mackey - Academia.edu
It is not very far to the NE of the now famous site of Göbekli Tepe.
Thus it is not surprising that Jacqueline
Swartz might ask: “Is Turkey’s Göbekli Tepe the Beginning of Human History?”
Göbekli Tepe must be, assuredly, one of
the very earliest sites after the Flood and humanity’s departure from the
mountain (Karaca Dağ).
But, unlike in the article by Jacqueline
Swartz, according to which Göbekli Tepe is 12,000 years old, I think that we
could immediately lop off half or more of this number.
By Jacqueline Swartz
From a hilltop vantage point with a sweeping view, visitors
gaze down at a 12,000-year-old Turkish archeological site located in the
foothills of the Taurus Mountains. In the past few decades, as new discoveries
have been unearthed, archaeologists have been changing their views about the
significance of the site. Among non-archaeologists, it’s another story:
speculation about what the location represents has triggered both Netflix shows
and New Age fantasies.
How were humans, five thousand years [sic] before
Stonehenge, able to build such a massive communal site, with engraved pillars
and semi-realistic carvings of the wild animals of the time – lions, snakes,
gazelles and foxes?
Why are these finds, discovered only a few decades ago,
considered to be so crucial to the history of humanity? For one thing,
they show the origins of human history in the Neolithic age, thousands of years
before [sic] the invention of pottery and writing. And they continue to raise
questions about long-held assumptions. For instance, it was once thought
that only settled agricultural societies could create culture, that only such
communities could come together to build temples.
“Before we thought the people who built Göbekli
Tepe were hunter-gatherers who began farming,” explained Turkish
archaeologist Ahmet Yavuzkir, speaking to a group at the site. “We thought
everything began with farming. This concept – that farming created modern
civilization – was the basis for our historical assumptions. Now
everything is reversed,” he said. “Hunter-gatherers built this site.”
With no farms or animal husbandry, what did these people
eat? Wild animals like antelopes, wild boar, foxes, and aurochs—a now-extinct
ancestor of the cow—were staples. So were wild grains – barley and wild
oats, chickpeas and lentils. There could even have been beer, given the wild
barley. But there is no evidence of planting.
Hunter-Gatherers or Settled
Communities?
The either/or idea of settled communities versus
hunter-foragers always on the move is now disputed. The site’s coordinating
archaeologist, Lee Clare, believes that Göbekli Tepe was a place where
hunter-gatherers spent time, benefitting from the seasonal abundance of a place
on a migratory route for gazelles and surrounded by acres of wild grain.
The project, now a cooperative venture between the Sanliurfa
Archeological Museum and the German Archeological Society, began in 1994 when
German archaeologist Klaus Schmidt started unearthing megaliths and stone
pillars. The project is relatively recent, compared to major discoveries like
the Pyramids of Giza (c. 1830) or Ephesus (c. 1869).
Since Klaus Schmidt’s findings, there has been much
speculation and some far-out theories. One claims the area was the biblical
Garden of Eden. No serious archaeologist agrees, but the internet is full
of videos on this and other fantasies about Göbekli Tepe. Still, a Garden of
Eden is easy to imagine.
For in a kind of climate boomerang from the mini-ice age,
this area, part of the Fertile Crescent, produced lush woodlands and
grasslands, rivers, and fruit and nut trees.
World’s First Temple?
A more common notion is that it was the site of the world’s
first temple. Klaus Schmidt believed this until he died in 2014. However,
according to the project’s current coordinator, archeologist Lee Clare, the
more recent discoveries of domestic tools and settings suggest that these
hunter-gatherers did live there, most likely part-time. This was a domestic,
not a sacred space. Still, the “first temple” theory gained traction, gaining
publicity when Göbekli Tepe was designated a UNESCO World Heritage Site in
2018. The following year, the government of Türkiye declared “The Year of
Göbekli Tepe.” This attracted tourists, and a visitor center was opened.
On-Site Visitor Center
Göbekli Tepe, now considered one of the world’s most
significant Neolithic discoveries, demonstrates how tourism can coexist with
archaeology. The visitor center, opened in 2019, includes a gift shop and
café. But what is most striking – and valuable – is the round-shaped animation
center. It explains some of the complex and controversial notions about the
work of our prehistoric ancestors.
There are interactive screens and stools for sitting.
Exiting the visitor center, you walk up a long ramp and gaze
down at the site, which is protected by the dramatic flying saucer-shaped
canopy. In the distance, there are the beige distant hills; far below,
limestone enclosures surround the famous T-shaped megaliths, some as high as 18
feet. These are likely among the first such sites built by humans. It’s
incredible, and inscrutable. Adding to this is the fact that different levels
of Göbekli Tepe were buried and rebuilt, and the entire site was buried around
8,000 BC [sic]. Why? Archaeologists assumed that this was a practice of
the time. Today, they point to the possibility of natural landslides,
given the artificial hill on which the site stands and the heavy pillars it
supports.
There are now about a dozen similar sites in the region, all
smaller than Göbekli Tepe, none of which have a visitor center. The major one,
Karahan Tepe, located about an hour east, has drawn attention to its room,
which features what are now identified as phallic pillars, with a scowling
stone face emerging from a surrounding wall.
Sanliurfa Archaeological Museum
For anyone visiting Göbekli Tepe, the Sanliurfa Archaeology
Museum is a must-see. Located about eight miles from the site, the museum
is the largest in Türkiye. Spanning multiple periods up to the Ottoman era, it
features an entire area dedicated to Goblekli Tepe. You can marvel at
discoveries such as the megaliths, or pillars, and the carved wild animals that
decorate them.
There’s a full-scale reproduction of what is called Special
Building D, carbon-dated to around 9525 BC. Special Building D, unlike
the other structures, has no items related to daily life – no grinding stones,
for instance. Could this be a religious site?
Archaeologist Lee Clare, who worked on the discovery of
Building D, refuses to call it a temple. In a witty and informative video
interview, he explains that the word is too
close to contemporary notions of a religious site.
According to the German Archaeological Institute, the
pillars, which are engraved with animals and what appear to be arms and
handbags, could have been an abstract representation of men congregating.
Women don’t seem to be represented anywhere – even the animals are male.
The site was likely used for communal activities, even
rituals.
According to Ahmet Yavuzkir, the archaeologist and deputy
director of the museum, human deities weren’t worshipped, but perhaps animals
or nature were. “This is where animistic and totemistic tendencies began [sic],”
he says.
….
Sadly, however, we find that the:
World
Economic Forum puts lid on Gobekli Tepe
(13) World
Economic Forum puts lid on Gobekli Tepe
Read
also:
Klaus
Schmidt’s archaeologist wife decries poor work at Göbelki Tepe
(13) Klaus
Schmidt's archaeologist wife decries poor work at Göbelki Tepe
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