Discovering Göbekli Tepe

哥贝克力石阵：发现 · Göbekli Tepe, part 1

Where is it?

• On a hilltop in south-east Turkey, near the city of Şanlıurfa.
• The name is Turkish for “Potbelly Hill”: the hill is round, like a big belly.
• Under the hill are rings of giant carved stones.

Göbekli Tepe is in the south-east of Turkey, close to Syria.

Say it: guh-bek-LEE TEH-peh. Ask: what do we usually expect to find under a hill? (Rocks, soil. Sometimes, an old town.)

How old is it?

Göbekli Tepe was built about 11,500 years ago, around 9500 BC. It is the oldest big stone monument we know.

The orange bar is the time Göbekli Tepe was in use: about 1,500 years. Point out the Parthenon (Unit 1) and the Colosseum (Unit 2): they are closer in time to us than to Göbekli Tepe. Göbekli Tepe is more than 6,000 years older than Stonehenge, and older than writing.

Found twice

• 1963: a survey team saw broken stones on the hill. They thought it was an old graveyard.
• 1994: the archaeologistarchaeologist 考古学家A scientist who learns about the past from things people left behind.History Vocab ↗ Klaus Schmidt looked again. He saw the stones were the tops of giant pillars.
• 1995 to today: German and Turkish teams run the excavationexcavation 发掘Careful digging to find and study things from the past.History Vocab ↗. They have dug up only about one tenth of the hill.

Lesson: an expert can look at the same thing and see something new. We’ll see archaeologists change their minds again in part 2.

Digging into the past

archaeologist 考古学家

A scientist who learns about the past from things people left behind.

excavation 发掘

Careful digging to find and study things from the past.

artifact 文物

An object that people made or used long ago.

The enclosures

• Each enclosureenclosure 环形建筑A round stone building with T-pillars set in its wall.History Vocab ↗ is a round stone building, 10 to 30 m across.
• A ring of pillars stands in the wall, with a stone bench.
• Two giant pillars stand in the middle.
• Four have been dug up. Scans show many more under the hill.

Enclosure D, under a modern roof. The wooden frames keep the pillars safe.

T-pillars are people

A T-pillarT-pillar T形石柱A tall stone shaped like a T, carved to look like a person.History Vocab ↗ is a megalithmegalith 巨石A very large stone used to build a monument.History Vocab ↗: the biggest are 5.5 m tall and weigh about 10 tonnes, as much as six or seven cars.

The top of the T is a head seen from the side; the long part is the body. On some pillars you can see arms down the sides, hands that meet in front, and a belt. So each pillar is a giant stone person without a face. Who could they be? Ancestors? Spirits? Nobody knows for sure.

Look closely

• Find the arm: a long line down the side of the pillar.
• Find the animal: a fox, ready to jump.
• The carvings are reliefsrelief 浮雕A carving that stands out from a flat stone surface.History Vocab ↗: the stone around them was cut away.

The wood and wires hold the pillar up while archaeologists work.

A zoo in stone

The carvings show wild animals, many of them dangerous:

• foxes, wild boars and snakes
• vultures, cranes and ducks
• wild cattle (aurochs), scorpions and spiders

There are no farm animals: no sheep, goats or cows.

Animals carved on a pillar in Enclosure C.

The fact cards printable has six of these animals. Ask: why carve dangerous animals and not food animals? Take ideas; there is no single right answer. Researchers still debate it.

True or false?

Guess first, then click to see each answer.

Göbekli Tepe is older than the Egyptian pyramids. True

The pillars were carved with metal tools. False: stone tools

Most carvings show farm animals like sheep and cows. False: wild animals

Archaeologists have dug up the whole hill. False: about 1/10

No metal tools existed yet: the carvers used flint, a hard stone that breaks with sharp edges. Metal tools came thousands of years later.

Exit ticket

About how old is Göbekli Tepe?

Picture credits

• Title: Göbekli Tepe panorama, photo by Spica-Vega Photo Arts (Banu Nazikcan), CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons.
• Map: by Bjoertvedt, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons.
• Enclosure D and Enclosure C animals: photos by Dosseman, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons.
• Arm and fox pillar: photo by Guérin Nicolas, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons.
• Drawings: original, made for this course. Full list: images/CREDITS.md.