By Chloe Moehling, Bailey Palyvos, and Jack LaPerle
To get better familiar with Gobekli Tepe let’s first give a description of what Gobekli Tepe actually is. The site is Located 10 miles (16 km) outside of Şanlıurfa, Turkey. It is the oldest known man-made place of worship and dates back all the way back to 10,000 BCE. The builders who constructed this site predated any forms of writing, metal work, and pottery. Many of the 10 foot tall pillars that once formed a circle as the complete site can still be seen today, with carvings of gazelles,foxes, snakes, lions, and other characters as well. Something that archeologists have continually found at this site have been animal bone remains that date back to the same period as they believe Gobekli Tepe was built. This really helps archeologists argue their points as this fits in perfect with the belief that Gobekli Tepe was used for religious feasts. Another frequent find that archaeologists make here are tools made of flint that they have been able to date back also to the time period of the construction of Gobekli Tepe. These tools are thought to be used to cut the limestone that the pillars are made out of. With all these coll facts who wouldn’t want to go visit Turkey and see Gobekli Tepe for themselves.
For many years now archeologists from around the world have traveled to Gobekli Tepe to study the site and gain a better understanding on the significance behind it and how it was constructed. Recently archeologist have discovered that the ancient people who built Gobekli Tepe put countless amount detail into “Both the planning and the execution of the plan with accuracy were made possible by conceptualizing basic geometric ideas and methods such as circle, centre and compass arm” (Haklay, Gopher 2020). Archeologist were able to find this out by using standard deviation mapping to find the center points of each of the four enclosures at the site and found that “ in each enclosure, the centre point identified was the point at which the standard deviation value of the group of distances to the points marking the peripheral pillars was minimal” (Haklay, Gopher 2020). This proves that the ancient people who not only built but also spent time at Gobekli Tepe were much more sophisticated than many people think humans were at the time. This plays right into one of the main problems with most archeological topics in that it’s a common belief that ancient people did not possess the knowledge or skills to create all the wonderful things that have actually been proven to be from them.
Haklay, & Gopher, A. (2020). Geometry and Architectural Planning at Gobekli Tepe, Turkey. Cambridge Archaeological Journal, 30(2), 343–357. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0959774319000660