Göbekli Tepe, an archaeological site in southern Turkey, features several Neolithic temple-like enclosures decorated with many intricately carved symbols.
Göbekli Tepe (Turkish for “Pot-bellied Hill”) is one of the oldest known examples of an artificial megalithic structure constructed by prehistoric builders specifically for ritual purposes.
Its impressive monumental architecture was built by a group of hunter-gatherers during the Pre-Pottery Neolithic period between 9600 and 8200 BC.
Göbekli Tepe was discovered towards the end of the last century in a hillside overlooking the Harran Plain.
It lies between the upper reaches of the Euphrates and Tigris rivers, about 12 km northeast of the modern city of Şanlıurfa, known as Ancient Urfa and said to be the birthplace of the biblical Abraham.
Excavations at Göbekli Tepe, which began in 1994, have uncovered four large, nearly circular enclosures and a number of smaller, generally rectangular, buildings.
Each circular enclosure consists of rough stone walls with T-shaped megalithic pillars inset around two centrally located tall T-shaped pillars, which are usually fixed within stone sockets.
Archaeologists initially thought that Göbekli Tepe was merely a religious center, but recent excavations have revealed that it also contained a settlement of rectangular buildings, now thought to be homes.
The large enclosures are still considered “special” buildings, although there is debate as to whether they had a specific religious purpose or were large homes for powerful families.
In the context of this debate, it is debated whether the largest pillars represent gods or even worshipped ancestors.
In any case, it is generally believed that these large enclosures were roofed, but hard evidence is elusive.
A round-elliptical monumental structure with a distinctive T-shaped monolithic pillar at Göbekli Tepe, Turkey. Image credit: Nico Becker, Göbekli Tepe Archive, German Archaeological Institute.
“The largest complete enclosure discovered so far, Enclosure D (30 metres, 98 feet wide), has the oldest radiocarbon date yet obtained from the site, dating to 9530 BC,” said archaeologist David Schneider of the University of Edinburgh. paper Published in the journal Time and Heart.
“This date corresponds roughly to the end of the Younger Dryas period, at the boundary between the Epipaleolithic and Neolithic, when the Northern Hemisphere climate suddenly warmed after a near-glacial Younger Dryas climate that lasted for more than 1,200 years.”
“However, the date of the earliest occupation of Göbekli Tepe is unknown,” he added.
“Ground penetrating radar scans indicate that there appear to be several other large structures near the center of the main trail, waiting to be discovered.”
“Since only a small portion of the site's surface has been excavated, and even less has been excavated down to bedrock, the origins of Göbekli Tepe may ultimately be dated back to a time closer to the beginning of the Younger Dryas period, around 10,800 BC.”
“In fact, scientists have suggested it may have originated in the Paleolithic period.”
In a new analysis of the V-shaped symbols carved into the pillars at Göbekli Tepe, Dr Sweatman found that each V likely represents a day.
This interpretation allowed researchers to count a 365-day solar calendar consisting of 12 lunar months and 11 extra days on one of the pillars.
The summer solstice was considered a special day, and a V was drawn around the neck of a bird-like beast, which was thought to represent the summer solstice constellation at the time.
Other statues believed to represent gods were found nearby, all with similar V-shaped markings around their necks.
As both lunar and solar cycles are depicted, the carving may represent the world's oldest known lunisolar calendar, based on the phases of the moon and the position of the sun, predating any other known calendar of this type by thousands of years.
Detail of the center section of Pillar 43 at Göbekli Tepe. Image courtesy of Martin B. Sweatman, doi: 10.1080/1751696X.2024.2373876.
“Ancient people may have created these carvings at Göbekli Tepe to record the date when a swarm of cometary fragments hit Earth about 13,000 years ago, i.e. in 10,850 BC,” the scientists said.
“The cometary impact is thought to have caused a mini-glacial period lasting more than 1,200 years and led to the extinction of many large animal species.”
“It may also have triggered changes in lifestyle and agriculture that are associated with the emergence of civilisations in the Fertile Crescent of Western Asia shortly thereafter.”
Another pillar at the site appears to depict the Taurid meteor shower, which emanated over a 27-day period from the direction of Aquarius and Pisces, and is thought to be the source of cometary debris.
The discovery also appears to confirm that ancient peoples were able to use precession — the wobble of the Earth's axis that affects the movement of the constellations in the sky — to record dates at least 10,000 years before it was recorded by the ancient Greek Hipparchus in 150 BC.
The carvings appear to have been important to the people of Göbekli Tepe for thousands of years, suggesting that the impact event may have sparked new cults and religions that influenced the development of the civilization.
The discovery also supports the theory that Earth's orbit crosses the path of orbiting cometary debris that we normally experience as meteor showers, increasing the chances that Earth will face cometary impacts.
“The inhabitants of Göbekli Tepe are likely to have been avid skywatchers, which is not surprising given that their world was devastated by a cometary impact,” Dr Sweatman said.
“This event may have marked the beginning of a new religion and may have sparked civilization by encouraging the development of agriculture to cope with the cold climate.”
“Perhaps their attempt to record what they saw was the first step towards the development of writing thousands of years later.”
_____
Martin B. Sweatman. The representations of calendar and time at Göbekli Tepe and Karahan Tepe support an astronomical interpretation of their symbols. Time and HeartPublished online July 24, 2024, doi: 10.1080/1751696X.2024.2373876
Source: www.sci.news
