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Gobekli Tepe

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  Quote Don Quixote Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Topic: Gobekli Tepe
    Posted: 20-Feb-2012 at 01:32
Gobelkli Tepe is the oldest human religious sanctuary, build in 9,000 BC, although teh earliest construction may be 11,000 or even 12,000 BC http://essayweb.net/history/ancient/gobekli.shtml .
This map shows where the tepe/hill/  is:


This map puts the sites of the Neolithic in Asia Minor in context:
http://www.thelivingmoon.com/43ancients/04images/Turkey/Gobekli/db_GobekliTepe_Urfa-Region9.jpg
Wwith green are marked the sites with aceramic Levantine Neolithic; withpurple the Catal Huyuk area; with yellow the Mesopotamian one; and the orange spot is the are where Gobekli Tepe is - smack in the middle of all other Neolithic  sites.

File:Göbekli Tepe, Urfa.jpg
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G%C3%B6bekli_Tepe

Plan for it:
http://grasptheuniverse.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/04/Gopekli_Tepe_BdW_2003-05_700px.jpgT-shaped stone slabs like this one are very common in Gobekli Tepe, with reliefs on them
http://essayweb.net/history/ancient/images/gobekli_foxie.jpg
The reliefs involve all kinds on animals, like lizards:

boar and something that looks like deer
http://www.crystalinks.com/gobeklitepewall.jpg
birds
http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2009/02/27/article-0-03B05683000005DC-812_306x516.jpg





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Nick1986 View Drop Down
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  Quote Nick1986 Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 21-Feb-2012 at 19:32

This temple is believed to be the remains of the oldest known civilisation, founded over 12,000 years ago. At this time people still used stone tools and had just begun the transition from hunter-gatherers to farmers. The stone-carvings are very well-made for the time and evoke comparisons to Aztec art, while the round layout of the temple complex may have inspired the design of the lost city of Atlantis:
Gobekli Tepe
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  Quote Don Quixote Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 21-Feb-2012 at 19:46
Nick, I made a thread on Gobekli Tepe couple of day ago here
http://www.allempires.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=31186&PID=666177#666177
would you mind if I move my post to your thread and erase mine, as yours is it's rightful place - I put mine in "Archeology and Anthropology"?



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  Quote Ollios Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 22-Feb-2012 at 01:27
We can call it Turkish Stonehenge, this will help Europeans to understand its importance
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  Quote medenaywe Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 22-Feb-2012 at 01:47
Mother's heads are all around Olios.
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  Quote Drusin Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 23-Feb-2012 at 21:39
This is great thank you
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  Quote Drusin Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 23-Feb-2012 at 21:47
Sanctuary and temple are leading tittles. They may have been temples and also served other functions, i fear our interpretations of these spaces are tainted by something as simple as what we decide to call them.  Acres of flint litter the area and there is much evidence of trade and manufacturing in the region. These may have served also as trading centers, administrative centers, even housing or entertainment.
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  Quote unclefred Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 24-Feb-2012 at 12:19
One major view is that this was a ceremonial center, and also a place of the dead. So far though, there have been no large skeletal findings to support that view. The site has years of digging lying ahead before the mystery is revealed. Obviously it had importance, or they wouldn't have bothered burying it. That it was left buried is a puzzle. 
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  Quote Drusin Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 24-Feb-2012 at 12:40
Perhaps they were protecting it from marauding forces, in the same way mummies in Egypt were moved and reburied.  
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  Quote Centrix Vigilis Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 24-Feb-2012 at 14:28
It's a lonesome and desolate looking place....Unkie. Dead wandering about... no doubt howling in the night... echos of steel on steel, spirits fighting endless battles.
I would like it.
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  Quote Nick1986 Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 24-Feb-2012 at 19:29
Originally posted by Drusin

Sanctuary and temple are leading tittles. They may have been temples and also served other functions, i fear our interpretations of these spaces are tainted by something as simple as what we decide to call them.  Acres of flint litter the area and there is much evidence of trade and manufacturing in the region. These may have served also as trading centers, administrative centers, even housing or entertainment.

It may have served other functions in later years (like a cemetery), but the intricate carvings suggest a ritual function. Perhaps it was the palace of an ancient priest or king?
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  Quote Drusin Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 24-Feb-2012 at 19:50
Here is an article that discusses potential uses of these ancient sites as a means of navigation.
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  Quote Drusin Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 24-Feb-2012 at 19:51
It's a spooky place now but was verdant and full of wild life when it was settled.
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  Quote TheAlaniDragonRising Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 25-Feb-2012 at 05:58
A 9m high pillar was found unfinished in the quarry which supplied the site. Is it possible that the structures were buried before completion? Then again it's also possible some social upheaval occurred.

Gobekli Tepe was buried under around 15,000 cubic feet of soil, which would require a level of coordination and effort on par with creating the site in the first place.

There are two likely reasons for the burial:

a. They may have been buried in order to protect them, as most other motives could be satisfied by a combination of toppling, smashing and burial.

b. Burying the stones may have been a religious practice, as part of a death or burial ritual.

Arguing in favor of protecting the site is possible conflict with a nearby agricultural settlement at Cayonu, which is believed to be the place where pigs were domesticated and several early grain crops were first planted.

Darker events were also afoot at Caynou: “Archaeologists … unearthed a hoard of human skulls. They were found under an altar-like slab, stained with human blood.[T]his may be the earliest evidence for human sacrifice: one of the most inexplicable of human behaviours and one that could have evolved only in the face of terrible societal stress … victims were killed in huge death pits, children were buried alive in jars, others roasted in vast bronze bowls.” [Source]

It is possible that Gobekli Tepe was considered sacred, or was threatened in some way by the rise of agricultural civilization.

http://www.erikorganic.com/green/9-steps-to-understanding-gobekli-tepe/



Edited by TheAlaniDragonRising - 25-Feb-2012 at 06:08
What a handsome figure of a dragon. No wonder I fall madly in love with the Alani Dragon now, the avatar, it's a gorgeous dragon picture.
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  Quote red clay Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 25-Feb-2012 at 11:13
To understand exactly what Gobekli was will require considerably more excavation than what's been done to date.  That includes a vast area surrounding it.  "Bronze Bowls"?  Bronze is an alloy, a mix of copper and tin.  It isn't found in nature.  So now your looking at a "Hunter-Gatherer society that had the knowledge of and the ability to smelt copper and tin, and the ability to work it.
Somethings not right here.
Can you say "Post apocolyptic"?
 
 
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  Quote TheAlaniDragonRising Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 25-Feb-2012 at 11:26
Originally posted by red clay

To understand exactly what Gobekli was will require considerably more excavation than what's been done to date.  That includes a vast area surrounding it.  "Bronze Bowls"?  Bronze is an alloy, a mix of copper and tin.  It isn't found in nature.  So now your looking at a "Hunter-Gatherer society that had the knowledge of and the ability to smelt copper and tin, and the ability to work it.
Somethings not right here.
Can you say "Post apocolyptic"?
 
 
Could we be looking at a revaluation of the term bronze age with this site being much earlier? 
What a handsome figure of a dragon. No wonder I fall madly in love with the Alani Dragon now, the avatar, it's a gorgeous dragon picture.
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  Quote Drusin Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 25-Feb-2012 at 13:00
hI,  I just read the linked article and I have a thought about the sacrifices.  Perhaps they were executed in public as an example of the power of the state disguised openly as religion.  I think it's all a matter of semantics; our interpretations.  When we use the word sacrifice it conjures up all sorts of implications linked with magic and the occult.  We then begin to dwell in this realm of mystique where we try to understand what they were thinking rather than focusing on what they were actually doing.  Likewise perhaps the Otzi man was killed by armed guards, be they the arms of God of the state or some admix of both. 
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  Quote red clay Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 25-Feb-2012 at 15:43
Originally posted by TheAlaniDragonRising

Originally posted by red clay

To understand exactly what Gobekli was will require considerably more excavation than what's been done to date.  That includes a vast area surrounding it.  "Bronze Bowls"?  Bronze is an alloy, a mix of copper and tin.  It isn't found in nature.  So now your looking at a "Hunter-Gatherer society that had the knowledge of and the ability to smelt copper and tin, and the ability to work it.
Somethings not right here.
Can you say "Post apocalyptic"?
 
 
Could we be looking at a revaluation of the term bronze age with this site being much earlier? 
 
 
I don't think so.  Apparently the technology behind bronze was lost.  The copper age preceded the bronze.
 
Post apocalyptic goes with the belief in a previous civilization as advanced or more so than our own.  After whatever global disaster knocked it out, there would still have been pockets of that civilization, some possibly untouched.  This would explain isolated advanced cultures of extreme   antiquity.
 
 
 
 
 
 
 


Edited by red clay - 25-Feb-2012 at 15:45
"Arguing with someone who hates you or your ideas, is like playing chess with a pigeon. No matter what move you make, your opponent will walk all over the board and scramble the pieces".
Unknown.
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  Quote Centrix Vigilis Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 25-Feb-2012 at 17:09
I also am more likely to go along with major natural disasters as a contributor to the collapse of the age in this region then most historians and archaeologists...especially which you consider the geophysical nature and history of past activity. Couple this with the plausibility and probability of similar in the region and social upheaval due to wars... invasions etc...and you have a more realistic theory then it was just the unnamed Sea Peoples alone, for example, who did it.
 
In other words multiplicity of cause saw the collapse...not precisely singularity as can be readily identified.


Edited by Centrix Vigilis - 25-Feb-2012 at 17:11
"Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence"

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  Quote Nick1986 Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 25-Feb-2012 at 20:00
That's an interesting idea Red. So Gobekli Tepe was just a small outpost of a larger, more advanced civilisation?
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