Göbekli Tepe

Göbekli Tepe, "Potbelly Hill" in Turkish, is a prehistoric mound on a limestone ridge in the foothills of the Taurus Mountains, near the village of Örencik in Şanlıurfa Province, south-eastern Turkey. People built and lived on it from about 9500 BCE until at least 8000 BCE, in the Pre-Pottery Neolithic, long before writing, metal or pottery. Its great round enclosures, ringed by carved T-shaped limestone pillars, are among the oldest known megaliths in the world and have transformed debate about how settled life began.

From the hill there is a view over the Harran plain and the source area of the Balikh, a tributary of the Euphrates. When it was in use the climate was wetter, and the surrounding steppe was rich in wild wheat, barley, gazelle, wild sheep and wild goats. This was the time of the Neolithic Revolution, when communities in south-west Asia first settled permanently and began to farm. Göbekli Tepe sits on a hilltop with no clear evidence of cultivated crops, which is why it has featured so heavily in arguments over whether farming led people to settle or settling led them to farm.

Radiocarbon dates place the earliest exposed structures between about 9500 and 9000 BCE. The site was enlarged in the early ninth millennium BCE and used until around 8000 BCE or a little later. Its builders appear to have been hunter-gatherers who also processed large amounts of cereal, whether wild or cultivated is unclear, and who lived there for at least part of each year. Thousands of grinding stones have been found, and rock-cut cisterns collected rainwater.

The round enclosures measure between about 10 and 30 metres across. Inside thick walls of rough stone stand evenly spaced T-shaped pillars, with a taller pair facing each other in the centre. Four enclosures have been uncovered, and geophysical surveys suggest the mound holds at least 20 in all. The pillars were cut with flint tools from quarries close to the hilltop. Many are carved with snakes, foxes, boars, vultures and other mostly male, often menacing animals, as well as abstract symbols. Some pillars bear arms, hands, belts and loincloths, showing that the T-shape itself stands for a stylised human body. Later buildings were rectangular, and one is named after a pair of pillars decorated with lions.

The enclosures were probably roofed and were damaged repeatedly by landslides from the slopes above. Excavators have traced a series of repairs, terrace walls and rebuilding, until enclosures were finally given up and replaced. In the last phase only small dwellings stood among the ruins.

Klaus Schmidt, who led excavations from 1995, saw the hill as a ritual centre where bands of nomadic hunters gathered for feasts and building projects, and the press called it the world's first temple. He estimated that hundreds of workers were needed, comparing the work with experiments in moving the moai of Easter Island. Others argue that a group of 7 to 14 people could have moved a pillar, and experiments at the site suggest that 12 to 24 people could have built the exposed later structures in under four months. Since Schmidt's death in 2014, the discovery of houses, cereal processing and water systems has led most researchers to view Göbekli Tepe as a settlement where everyday and ritual life went on side by side. Claims that it was an astronomical observatory have largely been rejected by the excavation team.

Smaller groups returned to live among the ruins after the Neolithic buildings were abandoned. A square foundation on the plateau may be the remains of a Roman watchtower on the Limes Arabicus, the frontier of the Roman Empire in the region. In more recent centuries the hill was farmed and regarded locally as a sacred place.

A survey by Istanbul University and the University of Chicago recorded the site in 1963, but took the tops of the pillars for grave markers. In 1994 Schmidt, who had worked at the nearby site of Nevalı Çori, was guided to the hill by the landowner Mahmut Yıldız and recognised the stones as prehistoric megaliths. Work continues under Istanbul University, the Şanlıurfa Museum and the German Archaeological Institute, directed by Necmi Karul. UNESCO listed Göbekli Tepe as a World Heritage Site in 2018. By 2021 only about a tenth of it had been excavated. In 2018 Schmidt's widow alleged that a new walkway had damaged the site, which the Turkish culture ministry denied.