The World's First Temple Turkey's 12,000-year-old stone

[shraby]

circles were the spiritual center of a nomadic people.

At first glance, the fox on the surface of the limestone pillar appears to be a trick of the bright sunlight. But as I move closer to the large, T-shaped megalith, I find it is carved with an improbable menagerie. A bull and a crane join the fox in an animal parade etched across the surface of the pillar, one of dozens erected by early Neolithic people at Göbekli Tepe in southeastern Turkey. The press here is fond of calling the site "the Turkish Stonehenge," but the comparison hardly does justice to this 25-acre arrangement of at least seven stone circles. The first structures at Göbekli Tepe were built as early as 10,000 B.C., predating their famous British counterpart by about 7,000 years.

The oldest man-made place of worship yet discovered, Göbekli Tepe is "one of the most important monuments in the world," says Hassan Karabulut, associate curator of the nearby Urfa Museum. He and archaeologist Zerrin Ekdogan of the Turkish Ministry of Culture guide me around the site. Their enthusiasm for the ancient temple is palpable.

<http://www.archaeology.org/0811/abstracts/turkey.html>

[Trajan]

1. Wow .... How fascinating ....

I have always loved learning about human origins and the development of social culture ... Artifacts describing religious rituals dating to 10,000 BC would presumably predate the Age of Agriculture ... This would be an astounding revelation ...

GREAT link .... thanks ...

[shraby]

2. There are a few of us around. It is a

fantastic find.

[aquart]

4. Why would it be astounding?

Seen any cave paintings lately? You do know we have evidence of bear worship in caves? The pregnant Venus of Willendorf is over 22,000 years old. Do you think that was a child's doll?

[aquart]

3. "First temple," my ass.

I really hate headlines like that when the correct wording would have been "earliest known."

It makes the scholarship look so sleazy.

[pansypoo53219]

5. earliest found or

preserved. they only just are rethinking the Bering land bridge. when we discussed it in a native american history class i took at art school, i just thought bullshit. the natives oral history said different and i believed them.
i wish i still got archaeology magazine.

[Trajan]

6. Really ?

Show a 'First Temple' from an earlier date ....

Please note: We are speaking of articles created by man for this purpose .... not simple hand prints in a natural cave ... This is an assemblage of objects erected by human hands and formed into a 'sacred site' to be used by humans .... NOT a splattering of pigments on a rock ....

To demand we are fools because we forgot about a fertility object that may be older is a simple non sequitur ... that object has nothing to do with the erection of ritual sites on the surface of the earth ...

Your derisive cut on this subject was unnecessary ...

You could have educated, but instead you insulted ...

Fancy that ....

You can imagine what I would say to you now if it werent for DU forum rules .... FO comes to mind ....

[shraby]

7. Why all the vitriol aquart? No one insulted you.