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Sneak Peek Sunday & the Busy Week... The A to Z Challenge – H for Hadrian’...

The A to Z Challenge – G for Gobekli Tepe

I’m participating in the A to Z Challenge. For nearly the entire month of April, I’ll write a post for each letter of the alphabet. This excludes Sundays. I’ll use those for the Sneak Peek. Follow this link to nearly 2000 other bloggers and authors.

The A to Z Challenge – participating blogs

Today’s Calliope’s Writing Tablet post is brought to you by the letter G — G for Gobekli Tepe.

In the 1960s, Turkish and American anthropologists surveyed the Southeastern Anatolia Region of Turkey. In a land studded with history, they came upon limestone slabs jutting a few inches out of the ground and at a glance determined they were Byzantine grave markers. In other words, just another historical site in an area full of archeological sites.

In 1994, Klaus Schmidt of the German Archaeological Institute of Istanbul read the initial findings. Visiting the site, he recognized something much older. The simple limestone-slab “Byzantine grave markers” turned out to be the very tops of intricately carved pillars, some standing 10 feet tall. Today this Neolithic site is called Gobekli Tepe and its discovery has rocked the known history of civilization off its comfortable foundation.

Believed to be a temple built long before the wheel was invented, Gobekli Tepe is at least 14,000 years old - older than the oldest structures in Egypt, older than Stonehenge, and older than agriculture. The most puzzling piece of information – the site was intentionally buried! That’s more than 30 acres of monuments intentionally covered under one basketful of dirt at a time. Just imagine the scope of that undertaking.

I’ve been following the story since it came to light in the 1990’s. As an author, this mystery certainly speaks to me. New information arises as more of this deliberately hidden site is excavated. It’s definitely news worth following. You can start with these:

http://ghn.globalheritagefund.org/explore.php?id=1327

http://www.smithsonianmag.com/history-archaeology/gobekli-tepe.html

Tomorrow, letter H!