Gobekli Tepe Read online

  At the southern end of the dromos a curious U-shaped stone portal, or inverse arch, was set up as an entranceway. The upright terminations of its two “arms” were carved into the likeness of strange, crouching quadrupeds that face outward; that is, away from each other. The identity of these twin guardians, only one of which remains roughly in situ today, is another puzzle (see plate 8). Schmidt calls this U-shaped doorway the “Lion’s Gate,”3 perhaps because of the twin lions carved in stone above the Lion’s Gate entrance at the Mycenaean city of Mycenae in southern Greece.

  Beyond the U-shaped entrance to the dromos, Schmidt’s team has uncovered a stone stairway of eight steps constructed to navigate a noticeable dip or “depression” in the bedrock (see figure 3.1).4 It is an incredible feat of ingenuity and constitutes one of the oldest staircases to be found anywhere in the world. Its presence here at Göbekli Tepe confirms both that an ascent was required to enter the enclosure and that the south was the direction of approach for the visitor.

  Figure 3.1. Plan of Göbekli Tepe showing the main enclosures uncovered so far.

  ENCLOSURE D

  Abutting Enclosure C to the northwest is Enclosure D, the most accomplished of all the structures at Göbekli Tepe. Once again it is ovoid, measuring approximately 60 feet (18 meters) by 47.5 feet (14.5 meters), and would originally have contained a ring of twelve T-shaped pillars (just eleven remain today). Its length-to-breath ratio is almost exactly 5:4, which, strangely enough, is identical to that of Enclosure B and Enclosure C, something that is unlikely to be coincidence. (The ovoid outline in the bedrock of the now vanished Enclosure E, located slightly west of the main group of structures, suggests that it too possessed a 5:4 size ratio.) It is a realization we return to in chapter 5.

  Two enormous twin monoliths stand at the center of Enclosure D. Although slightly bent by the weight of the soil and debris bearing down on them, they remain intact today. Each one—with a height of around 18 feet (5.5 meters) and weighing as much as 16.5 U.S. tons apiece (15 metric tonnes)—was found to have been slotted into rectangular pedestals carved out of the bedrock, like those in Enclosure C. Yet bizarrely these slots are no more than 4–6 inches (10–15 centimeters) deep, which would have left the pillars particularly unstable.

  Such a decision to erect the pillars in this manner is unlikely to have been a design fault, as it seems so out of character with the sophisticated style of building construction employed at Göbekli Tepe. The only logical explanation is to assume that in addition to being slotted firmly into the bedrock pedestals, the central pillars were held in place by wooden support frames (as they are today), which perhaps formed part of a roof.

  MYSTERY OF THE FLIGHTLESS BIRDS

  The carved decoration on Enclosure D’s eastern central pillar (Pillar 18) is quite extraordinary. Starting with the rock-cut pedestal supporting the monolith, we see a line of seven strange birds spread out along its south-facing edge (see plate 16). The peculiar shape of their heads and beaks give them the appearance of baby dinosaurs! However, the creatures’ plump bodies, without any obvious wings, reveal them to be flightless birds that sit on their haunches, their legs stretched out in front of them. So what species do they represent? An examination of known flightless birds from the past right down to the present day suggests they could be dodos (see figure 3.2).*1

  No other bird type known to have existed in the tenth millennium BC even comes close to matching what we see at Göbekli Tepe, and to ignore this conclusion would be to miss an opportunity to better understand the geographical world of the Göbekli builders. This is not to say they visited the island of Mauritius in the Indian Ocean, where the dodo was hunted to extinction by the first Europeans to reach the island, only that somewhere on their travels the Göbekli builders might have encountered a similar bird that is today extinct.

  As to why birds of this type are represented at Göbekli Tepe we can only speculate. Perhaps the fact that they are flightless is the clue. Since they can’t fly away, they are rooted to the ground, just like the bedrock pedestals on which they’re carved, implying therefore that the birds symbolize permanence and a point of foundation.

  Figure 3.2. Left, seated dodo bird and, right, two of the seven flightless birds seen on the pedestal of Göbekli Tepe’s Pillar 18 in Enclosure D.

  LATER PHASES OF BUILDING ACTIVITY

  Various smaller enclosures and cell-like rooms, uncovered to the north and west of the main group of buildings at Göbekli Tepe, were found to have been constructed during a slightly later building phase, ca. 9000–8000 BC. This seems certain, since they are positioned as much as 50 feet (15 meters) higher than the other enclosures constructed on the bedrock below. In other words, these much younger structures were built long after the older structures had been buried (at least in part) below the gradually emerging tell. Like their forerunners, these rooms contain T-shaped pillars, communal benches, and stone-lined walls, invariably rectangular in design. Yet in size and quality they are often greatly inferior. In some cases, they are the size of bathrooms, with their stones no more than 3.2 to 5 feet (1 to 1.5 meters) in height. Some of the pillars are T-shaped, with clearly carved anthropomorphic features like their predecessors, while others are left unadorned. Clearly the later Göbekli builders were downsizing in architectural style and artistic design, while at the same time retaining some elements of the earlier enclosures.

  Around 8000 BC the remaining structures at Göbekli Tepe were covered with fill and abandoned completely, this unique style of architecture continuing only at a handful of other Pre-Pottery Neolithic sites in the region, including Çayönü and Nevalı Çori, which we have already explored; Hamzan Tepe,5 Sefer Tepe,6 and Taşlı Tepe,7 all near Şanlıurfa; and Karahan Tepe.8 This last mentioned site, set within the Tektek Mountains some 40 miles (64 kilometers) east of Şanlıurfa, has yet to be fully excavated, even though in size it could easily match that of Göbekli Tepe (it was investigated by the present author in 2004, who noted carved stone fragments, exposed heads of T-shaped pillars, a stone row, and countless flint tools scattered across a very wide area indeed). At a place named Kilisik, close to the town of Adıyaman, around 53 miles (85 kilometers) north of Nevalı Çori, a mini T-shaped figure in the form of a small stone statue was found in 1965,9 leading prehistorians to consider that another early Neolithic site awaits discovery here (see chapter 10 for more on this remarkable statue). At a place named Kilisik, a village close to the Kahta river in Adıyaman province, in the foothills of the Anti-Taurus Mountains, some 46.5 miles (75 kilometers) north-northwest of Göbekli Tepe, a mini T-shaped figure in the form of a small stone statue was found in 1965,9 leading prehistorians to consider that another early Neolithic site awaits discovery here (see chapter 10 for more on this remarkable stature).

  TRIANGLE D’OR

  All of these sites, where T-shaped pillars and portable statues have been found, lie within a very small area no more than 150 miles (240 kilometers) in diameter, with its center close to Karaca Dağ, where the genetic origins of modern wheat have been traced to a variety of wild einkorn growing on its lower slopes. This area of southeast Anatolia, where neolithization began, has been christened the triangle d’or, the “golden triangle,” due to the key role it played in kick-starting the Neolithic revolution.10

  It is a grand title, the triangle d’or, but it does seem to express the sheer genius of inspiration that led to the emergence of sites such as Göbekli Tepe, with their unique architecture, which seems almost alien to the modern world. Yet where did this genius of inspiration come from? Dr. Mehrdad R. Izady, professor of Near East studies at New York University, wrote in 1992 (two years before Klaus Schmidt first visited Göbekli Tepe) that at the beginning of the Neolithic age the peoples of southeast Anatolia “went through an unexplained stage of accelerated technological evolution, prompted by yet uncertain forces.”11 What exactly were these as “yet uncertain forces”? Were they material or divine? Were they human or something else altogether? All we can say is that
something quite extraordinary happened in the triangle d’or some twelve thousand years ago, and the key to understanding this mystery might well await discovery among the T-shaped pillars and carved art of Göbekli Tepe.

  To date, seven major structures (Enclosures A, B, C, D, E, and F, as well as the Lion Pillar Building) have been explored at Göbekli Tepe. Yet the geomagnetic survey undertaken in 2003 suggests that this constitutes just a small fraction of what lies buried beneath the occupational mound (Schmidt estimates there might be as many as fifteen more enclosures still to be uncovered, providing a total of some 200 standing pillars12). As can be imagined, with two digging campaigns a year (April to May and September to November), Klaus Schmidt’s multinational team is constantly discovering new structures and monuments.

  Very gradually our fragmented picture of what went on here as much as twelve thousand years ago will slowly take shape. Trying to unravel its mysteries too soon is rife with problems, although simply stepping aside and allowing the archaeological evidence to speak for itself is to miss an opportunity to get inside the minds of the Göbekli builders and truly know what motivated them to give up their hunter-gatherer lifestyle to create monumental architecture on a scale never before seen in the world. Why exactly did they do this? Why create the earliest known megalithic monuments anywhere in the world? One possible clue is the strange carved symbolism on the stones that includes quite specific glyphs or ideograms, which, as we see next, might well reveal the Göbekli builders’ fascination with the heavens.

  4

  STRANGE GLYPHS AND IDEOGRAMS

  The eastern central pillar (Pillar 18) in Göbekli Tepe’s Enclosure D sports a wide belt on which are a sequence of abstract glyphs, or ideograms, which are likely to have had some symbolic meaning to the Pre-Pottery Neolithic world of the tenth millennium BC. One, looking like a thin letter C, is seen sometimes turned toward the left and at other times toward the right. Another glyph, resembling the letter H, is found both in an upright position and rotated 90 degrees (see figure 4.1 and plate 11 and plate13). It appears in the same sequence as the C-shaped glyphs, and both seem to work in concert with each other.

  On the “front” of the T-shape’s belt the H symbol appears no less than five times, two upright and three on their side. In addition to these glyphs is another, slightly larger ideogram that appears in the position of the figure’s belt buckle, below which a fox-pelt loincloth appears in high relief (both are explored in chapter 12).

  THE H GLYPH

  How might we interpret these strange ideograms in use among the Göbekli builders so soon after the end of the last Ice Age? Let’s start with the H glyph. Searching the archives of prehistoric symbolism throws up very little. They could be shields made of animal hide, as examples in prehistoric art do occasionally resemble the letter H. Yet if so, why do they appear so many times on the same pillar? Also apparent is that the H character resembles two letter Ts joined stem to stem. It is an association that might not be without meaning, especially in view of the general appearance of the T-shaped pillars at Göbekli Tepe and the presence of the twin monoliths at the center of the enclosures. If so, then what might this mirrored double T actually represent?

  Figure 4.1. Mid-section of Göbekli Tepe’s Pillar 18 in Enclosure D showing the figure’s wide belt decorated with C- and H-shaped glyphs.

  Is it possible that the H glyph conveys the connection between two perfectly mirrored worlds, states, or existences linked by a conceived bridge or tunnel, represented by the crossbar between the two “columns”? If this is the case, it really does not matter whether the glyph is depicted upright or rotated 90 degrees; the meaning would always be the same.

  SHAMANIC POT STANDS

  Some idea of how indigenous cultures have portrayed the relationship between the two worlds, and the transition between the two, can be found in the design of ritual pot stands used by the Desana shamans of Colombia. Taking the shape of an hourglass, that is, two cones point to point, they are made from spiraling canes bound together in such a manner as to leave a central hole connecting the two cones, which, when looked at from either end, have the appearance of a hole-like entrance through a spiraling vortex or whirlpool (see figure 4.2). Yet “when seen in profile, as an hourglass, the object can be interpreted as a cosmic model, the two cones connected by a circular ‘door’, an image that leads to others such as ‘birth’, ‘rebirth’, the passage from one ‘dimension’ (turí) to another while under the influence of a narcotic, and to similar shamanistic images. . . . In sum, the hourglass shape contains a great amount of shamanistic imagery concerned with cosmic structures and with transformative processes.”1

  These are the words of anthropologist Gerardo Reichel-Dolmatoff (1912–1994), who conducted an extensive study of the beliefs and practices of shamanic-based cultures of the Amazon rainforest. He saw the hourglass-shaped pot stand of the Desana as symbolic of the connection between the two worlds, the hole created between the two cones being the point of entrance and exit between the two dimensions of existence. This bears out the interpretation of Göbekli Tepe’s H glyph as being a mirrored symbol of movement between two worlds, whether across space or time. If so, then it is likely that the accompanying C glyph also has some kind of transformative role. It would not be unreasonable to see the twin C shape as the slim crescents of the old and new moon, which when shown together, face to face, signify the transition period between one lunar cycle and the next.

  Figure 4.2. Desana shaman’s ritual pot stand from the side and looking down through its hollow interior (after Gerardo Reichel-Dolmatoff).

  AUSTRALIAN ABORIGINAL ART

  Another possible interpretation of the C-shaped glyph can be found among the symbolic art of the aboriginal peoples of Australia. Here the C-shape ideogram depicts a bird’s-eye view of a seated man or woman, the arms of the symbol representing those of the individual.2 When two Cs are shown together, face to face, this denotes two people sitting opposite each other.3 Occasionally there will be a bar shown between them, signifying a small, benchlike mound constructed for special ceremonies and said to symbolize a mound of creation associated with a primeval snake.4

  A photograph in British anthropologist Sir Walter Baldwin Spencer’s book Across Australia (1912) of a Worgaia medicine man from Central Australia, who was himself “a great maker of medicine men,”5 shows the double C ideogram, with a bar in between, painted on his chest. It is nearly identical to one that appears on the chest of a T-shaped pillar at Göbekli Tepe (see figure 4.3 on p. 54),6 the only difference being that here the horizontal line forms the connecting bar of the H symbol earlier described.

  EMBLEMS OF OFFICE

  Like other major pillars at Göbekli Tepe, Enclosure D’s central monoliths have carved symbols upon their “neck,” just below their T-shaped heads. On the eastern pillar two are seen, the uppermost being the same H-shaped glyph found on the belt. This particular example is upright with a small, hollowed-out oval shape within its crossbar (here the symbol looks like two matchstick men holding hands, which lends credence to the idea that the C-ideogram might sometimes mean a seated man or woman, just as it does in Australian aboriginal art). Immediately beneath the H shape is a well-defined, horizontal crescent, its horns turned upward. Cupped within its concave form is a wide-banded circle with a deeply incised hole at its center. A thin, V-shaped “collar” or “chain” is visible either side of the two glyphs (see figure 4.4 on p. 56), making it clear that these symbols are emblems of office worn around the neck, perhaps denoting the individual’s status or identity.

  Figure 4.3. Left, double C and H symbol on the chest of Pillar 28 in Göbekli Tepe’s Enclosure C. Right, Worgaia medicine man from Central Australia with the same symbol on his body.

  Confirming the use of collars or chains by the elite of the Pre-Pottery Neolithic is a life-size statue of a man, 5 feet 9 inches (1.8 meters) in height, found at Şanlıurfa, just 8 miles (13 kilometers) from Göbekli Tepe (see plate 23). Located today in the cit
y’s archaeological museum, the figure was discovered in 1993 on Yeni Yol Street in Balıklıgöl, the oldest part of the city, where a Pre-Pottery Neolithic A settlement was investigated in 1997.7 It is here also in Balıklıgöl that the prophet Abraham is said to have been born within a cave shrine renowned throughout the Muslim world as an important place of pilgrimage. The statue, which has black obsidian disks for eyes, a prominent nose, arms that end in hands clasped over the genitalia, and a conelike lower half where the legs should be, dates to around 9000 BC. The fact that it also sports a double V-shaped collar in high relief is evidence that the neck emblems on the T-shaped pillars at Göbekli Tepe are most likely pendants or medallions attached to a chain or collar of office.

  THE EYE AND THE CRESCENT

  Although it is conceivable that the crescent on the neck of the eastern central pillar in Enclosure D signifies the moon, the carved circle with the hole in its center is more difficult to understand (see figure 4.4 on p. 56). Perhaps it is a representation of an eye, as similar circles with hollow middles act as eyes on the 3-D carving of the snarling predator seen on the front face of Enclosure C’s Pillar 27. The likeness is too close for this to be simply coincidence. So if the circle is an eye, then the slim crescent that cups it must form the lower eyelid.

  In ancient Egypt the eye was the symbol of the sun god Re (or Ra), while the title Eye of Re was given to various leonine goddesses including Sekhmet, Tefnut, and Bastet, showing the clear relationship between the sun and the all-seeing eye.