Part 1: Mysterious 12,000-Year-Old Gobekli Tepe

RSS Feed

Part 1: Mysterious 12,000-Year-Old Gobekli Tepe

June 17th, 2012

FAKE NEWS for the Zionist agenda

Part 1: Mysterious 12,000-Year-Old Gobekli Tepe

“What was so important to these early people that they gathered
to build (and bury) the stone rings? The gulf that separates us
from Gobekli Tepe’s builders is almost unimaginable.”

– Smithsonian Reporter Andrew Curry

12,000-year-old circles of limestone columns weighing from 7 to 15 tons or more
have been excavated in Gobekli Tepe, Turkey, about 6 miles southeast of Urfa.
Older than Egypt, Sumeria and Stonehenge, 40 standing T-shaped columns have so far
been revealed in four circles 98 feet (30 meters) in diameter and round-penetrating radar
indicates there are 250 more pillars in circles extending over another 25 acres
of the 30-acre ancient site. Image © 2008 by Haldun Aydingun.

Gobekli Tepe in Turkish means “Potbelly Hill” (blue and white circle),
an archaeological site six miles southeast of Urfa (top red circle)
not far from Harran, Turkey (bottom red circle), and the Syrian border.
The region’s water comes from the Euphrates, the longest river of Western
Asia, that originates upstream from Keban, Elazig Province in eastern Turkey.

Gobekli Tepe is an artificially constructed “potbelly hill” that rises 1,000 feet
above the valley floor. On a dirt path to the top on June 13, 2012, Robert Schoch, Ph.D.,
and Prof. of Geology at Boston University, led the tour group to the excavation in time
for sunrise. Images above and below © 2012 by Linda Moulton Howe.

June 16, 2012 Gobekli Tepe 6 miles southeast of Urfa not far from Harran, Turkey – On Wednesday, June 13, 2012, as the sun rose I was standing on the Gobekli Tepe hilltop. Ramps have been built around the archaeological excavations of mysterious, thin, tall (16 to 19 feet), T-shaped, elegantly carved limestone pillars placed carefully in circular patterns over some 30 acres a thousand feet above the valley floor and sculpted with odd, even unrecognizable, animals, insects and humanoid figures to be detailed in Part 2.

Earthfiles Reporter and Editor Linda Moulton Howe at June 13, 2012, sunrise
on the Gobekli Tepe hill excavation southeast of Urfa, Turkey. German archaeologist
Klaus Schmidt began scraping away dirt from the hill in 1994. His dig’s careful carbon
dating and soil compression analysis – combined with ground-penetrating radar – have
revealed at least 250 thin, elegant, T-shaped limestone pillars were placed 12,000
years ago in circles covering 30 acres. Then a thousand years later, the entire
mysterious site was covered back over with soil until it was uncovered again
in 1994 by Klaus Schmidt. Image by James Sorensen for Earthfiles.com.

I joined Boston University geologist Robert M. Schoch, Ph.D., his wife Katie and their Turkish tour team of Gregory Poplawski and Jack Jakubowsky from Poland and Turkish guide Suat
Dokumaci, who led our group of about 40 Americans from Istanbul through many other ancient Greek, Roman and Byzantine archaeological sites as we traveled southeastward to Gobekli Tepe during the first two weeks of June 2012.

Robert Schoch (far right 2nd row) with tour group in front of Ephesus library near present-day
Selcuk, Izmir Province, Turkey. Far left same row is tour organizer Gregory Poplawski holding
camera next to Earthfiles Reporter and Editor Linda Moulton Howe. Ephesus was one of the
twelve cities of the Ionian League during the Classical Greek era of 5th through 4th centuries
B. C., Ephesus was one of the seven churches of Asia that are cited in the Bible’s
Book of Revelation. Also, the Gospel of John might have been written here. Not far
from Ephesus on a cedar-forested hill is the “Virgin Mary’s House” that rests on a
2000-year-old foundation and is honored as Mary’s home after her son Christ’s
death on the cross. Tour image by Leo Skorpion Film Production.

Gobekli Tepe in Turkish means a “potbelly hill” first studied in a 1964 survey by Istanbul University and University of Chicago scientists, who concluded the hill could not be an entirely natural feature. But not until 1994 did German archaeologist Klaus Schmidt, Ph.D., begin excavating layer-by-layer, carefully dating and studying the surrounding soils as he dug.

[ Editor’s Note: Wikipedia “Upper Mesopotamia (SE Turkey, N Syria and N Iraq) 14C databases: 11th–6th millennia cal BC.”

Lab-Number   Date BP       Cal BC          Context
Ua-19561       8430 ± 80    7560–7370   Enclosure C
Ua-19562       8960 ± 85    8280–7970   Enclosure B
Hd-20025       9452 ± 73    9110–8620   Layer III
Hd-20036       9559 ± 53    9130–8800   Layer III

The Hd samples are from charcoal in the lowest levels of the site and would date the active phase of occupation. The Ua samples come from pedogenic carbonate coatings on pillars and only indicate a time after the site was abandoned. ]

View over the main excavation area at Gobekli Tepe. In the foreground Enclosure D,
to the left Enclosure C, in the background Enclosures B and A. Image © 2012 by DAI,
N. Becker, Summer 2012 Issue 02 of Actual Archaeology Magazine-Anatolia,
“The First Temple of the World: Gobekli Tepe.”

Archaeologist Klaus Schmidt, Ph.D., of the German
Archaeological Institute in Istanbul, Turkey.
Image © 2010 by Robert Schoch, Ph.D.

To his surprise, Dr. Schmidt did not find evidence of cooking hearths, houses or trash pits, and no clay fertility figurines. He found some stone hammers and blades, but no specific tools that could explain how the extraordinary 3-dimensional sculptures were made.

Eventually he called Gobekli Tepe “a 12,000-year-old cathedral on a hill” without knowing who made it or why. So far, Gobekli Tepe stands alone in its role as a temple that preceded inhabitants. But at Upper Mesopotamian sites such as Jerf el Ahmar, Tell Qaramel, Kortik Tepe, Hallan Cemi, Nemrik and a few others, there are symbols and animal motifs similar to some of those found at Gobekli Tepe. The Nemrik images are considered by some scholars to “offer a view on a symbolic world that was unimagined for such early times.”

Only 5% of Gobekli Tepe Site Revealed

Since 1994, only 5% of the repeating limestone pillar circles have been uncovered. According to ground penetrating radar illustrated below, there might be at least 250 more standing pillars formed
in 18 more circles still buried under an additional 22 acres of deep soil. All of this built 12,000 years ago – and then carefully reburied a thousand years later!

Smithsonian magazine reporter Andrew Curry visited Gobekli Tepe in 2008 and wrote, “Predating Stonehenge by 6,000 years, Turkey’s stunning Gobekli Tepe upends the conventional view of the rise of civilization” far earlier than the academically acceptable timeline of Mesopotamia 5,000 years ago. “What was so important to these early people that they gathered to build (and bury) the stone rings? The gulf that separates us from Gobekli Tepe’s builders is almost unimaginable. Indeed, though I stood among the looming megaliths eager to take in their meaning, they didn’t speak to me. They were utterly foreign, placed there by people who saw the world in a way I will never comprehend. There are no sources to explain what the symbols might mean. Schmidt agrees, ‘We’re 6,000 years before the invention of writing here.’’’

To be continued in Part 2: Odd creatures on the pillars.

Also see Earthfiles Archive:
• 10/01/2010 — Gobekli Tepe: 12,000 Years Old and Rewriting Human History

More Information:

For future ancient site tour information:

– Ancient Civilization Tours with Gregory Poplawski, Poland: http://www.timeofanewera.com

– Robert M. Schoch, Ph.D., Geology, Boston University: http://www.robertschoch.com/

For further reports about Gobekli Tepe and other ancient sites, please see Earthfiles Archive.

• 05/06/2012 — Updated: Malta’s 6,000-Year-Old Hypogeum – Built to Alter Minds with Sound?
• 11/23/2011 — Greek Gods Were Extraterrestrials, Says Erich von Daniken in Latest Book, Odyssey of the Gods.
• 09/30/2011 — Part 2: Interviews with Scientists Studying Mysterious, Ancient Stone Circles in Middle East Visible Only from Air
• 09/16/2011 — Part 1: Mysterious, Ancient Stone Circles in Middle East Visible Only from Air
• 10/21/2010 — Dead Sea Scrolls Going Online
• 10/01/2010 — Gobekli Tepe: 12,000 Years Old and Rewriting Human History
• 07/07/2006 — Noah’s Ark Atop Takht-e-Soleiman Peak in Iran?
• 12/09/2005 — Mystery of “Footprints” in 1.3 Million-Year-Old Mexico Volcanic Rock
• 04/23/2002 — John Anthony West Organizing New Effort to Date Weathering of Sphinx and Red Pyramid Chamber
• 12/01/2001 — 1200 B. C. – What Caused Earthquake Storms, Global Drought and End of Bronze Age?
• 11/19/2001 — Update on Underwater Megalithic Structures near Western Cuba
• 09/22/2001 — Huge Hexagram Crop Formation in Red Deer, Alberta, Canada
• 06/16/2001 — Beyond Stonehenge with Astronomer Gerald Hawkins
• 05/05/2001 — Archaeologists Find Central Asia Civilization As Old As Sumeria
• 05/28/2000 — Hamoukar, Syria – A City Older Than 6000 Years?