Göbekli Tepe: The World's Oldest Temple?

Göbekli Tepe is a massive monolithic complex in southeastern Turkey. Archaeologists have hypothesized that the site is the oldest temple known to humanity. But what do we know about it? And why do archaeologists think it is a religious site?
Kurzgesagt mentions this site in a recent video, check it out!: • A New History for Huma...
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Bibliography:
Banning, E.B. “So Fair a House: Gobekli Tepe and the Identification of Temples in the Pre-Pottery Neolithic of the Near East,” Current Anthropology, vol. 52, no. 5 (2011): 619-660.
Borié, Dusan. “Theater of Predation: Beneath the Skin of Göbekli Tepe Images,” in Christopher Watts, Relational Archaeologies: Humans, Animals, Things,”
Oliver Dietrich, “The role of cult and feasting in the emergence of Neolithic communities. New evidence from Göbekli Tepe, south-eastern Turkey," Antiquity, Sept 2012.
Article on beer brewing at Göbekli Tepe: tepetelegrams.wordpress.com/2...
Article on dating Göbekli tepe: tepetelegrams.wordpress.com/2...

[@futurepig]

It blows my mind that humans had beer before pottery. Now that I think about it, probably pottery was invented by someone tired of drinking his beer out of a hollowed stone.

[@katethegoat7507]

Mind, wood doesn't preserve. It's likely they'd have used carved wood cups.

[@futurepig]

@@katethegoat7507 Or skulls!

[@katethegoat7507]

@@futurepig hopefully not that

[@deansusec8745]

Just draft beer on tap :)

[@damienthonk1506]

Hominids have been eating fermented foods before humans even existed. All beer is really is just moldy grain juice.

[@CornerTalker]

What I seem to find is that each new find results in "We didn't know people this far back were so advanced!"

[@adambartlett114]

Only the most arrogant & foolish would... It's abundantly evident that humans have been around for quite some time. The humans in those days were pretty much identical to modern humans, just without the advanced education systems. So it's hardly surprising that they did such impressive works... Adam

[@NoahSpurrier]

It could be our story, too, someday.

[@allbottledup9513]

@John Creley That’s not at all what he was saying. You misread his comment. He was merely saying only arrogant people would assume people in ancient times were not capable of these things. I don’t necessarily agree with that but that was all he was getting at.

[@mitchgunzler3737]

New finds can only move the “first example” of anything back, never forward,

[@multivitamin425]

@@adambartlett114 Are you a god... Adam?

[@oreste8570]

-Can you build a huge stone temple? -Yes -Can you make a pot? -Too complicated

[@albusai]

i was just thinking the same thing

[@braindeadobserver1340]

maybe the concept of a pot did not enter their minds at that time.

[@VendettaAllan]

-Can we brew beer? -Got ya fam -How will we drink it then?

[@HUNdAntae]

i know it sounds stupid, coz you have a fundamental knowledge of a number of materials, how they work, how they happen. But that knowledge was gathered over dozens of millenia. we only have proper cast iron since the late 1700s, if you go back with a roll of aluminium foil to the age of Louis XIV, you could buy a palace with it... Technological evolution is exponential, and the first steps were reaaaally slow. Putting things on top of each other, even carving them is a no-brainer. Figuring out pottery is infinitely more complex: which kind of soil do you pick up, how do you work it to keep a decent shape, how do you make it stable (sundried pottery is still pretty useless for holding liquids), you figured out fireing clay, but what temperature do you need, so your jugs would do their thing but not blow up due to inner stress? How do you make them actually waterproof so your water/beer won't evaporate through the pores (glazing)? Compared to all that trial-error innovation, carving a stone or wooden cup even with intricate design is really easy, just a bit of elbow-greese...

[@oreste8570]

@@VendettaAllan loool

[@dexia56]

I was lucky enough to visit the place last year.

[@TheAIKnowledgeHub]

I wish there was a way to tour these types of places with VR. Like there is a ton and a half of people that will never get the chance to see the place. But with everyone having a phone or computer, it would be great if some of these places were brought to the people who wanted to see it.

[@jasontucker3456]

Craig Bennett II. Someone just has to filmbit

[@TheAIKnowledgeHub]

ya? It honestly wouldn't be that hard. And as 360 cameras get better and cheaper. The barrier to entry on something like this is lower and lower. But my point is. With the thousands that goes to many of these sites per year. You will have millions that will never have the chance. The reason for this could easily be because of the cost, time, fear, danger, and so on. And the funny thing is, a VR experience actually preserves the site in some way. Like with ISIS messing up a ton of sites, they couldn't really take it completely away if there was a VR of it before they messed up the place.

[@endod8708]

I live 200 kms away from this place. Now i really want to go. I will post a link to pics that i will be taking. :)

[@nenabunena]

I agree, a lot of us won't or can't travel around so many of these ancient places, VR would be very cool

[@luddity]

Unfortunately, only a small portion of it has been excavated so far.

[@BladeEdge86]

My aunt (may she rest in peace) who had a masters degree in theology would have loved your videos. I am loving the channel so far, I am learning alot.

[@bahrameftekhari8094]

Before learning how to bake bread, the earliest discovery for the use of grains was to soak them in water. It was discovered by chance that not only did they automatically soften into an edible gruel, essential to get through the winter months, but that it also became a "magical" intoxicant (probably the first known intoxicant). Since there were no pottery, its production could only be done in stone pots. The size of the pots suggest centralised production. Thus the site could have been where goods were exchanged for the gruel (before money was invented). If so, it could thus be more accurately described as a market place/bar/ stock exchange, decorated with animal logos.

[@rslavov1]

It was a bar!

[@aniksamiurrahman6365]

Are u my long lost sister? How else u came up with the same thought as I did?

[@RockStar_Love]

😂😂

[@smokinsoldier6892]

The simplest answer is sometimes the best!

[@ANTSEMUT1]

Did everyone know your name though and had a Neolithic Ted Danson analogue?

[@oreste8570]

Nothing like a cold beer after hunting in a dry hot summer day.

[@m.g.9468]

The guy who opened that trendy inn back then would have such a fun time watching people 10 millennia later speculation on it's remains.

[@davidoldham7448]

I visited Gobekli Tepe a few days ago (July 2021) it completely blew my tiny mind! Would highly recommend the trip!

[@sunnyeren]

I went to Turkey to Sanliurfa near Göbekli Tepe but the site was closed but fortunately some stones were put in the museum in Sanliurfa. They even built a replica of a stone circle with copies of monoliths with carvings for people to walk in and expereince. If it was a building it would have been massive somehow I doubt it had a roof. I also visited Çatalhöyük which had building but were significately smaller in size than the stone circles at Göbekli Tepe. The two central pillars look like both a man and woman which is memory serves me are similar to ancient early mesopotemian sites that had similar stone that evolved from Göbekli Tepe to later neolithic sites found in pre-mesopotamia or Natufian culture but that just a guess. Clearly though it had deep symbolic meaning but habitation or a swelling I can't see but I am no expert.

[@russelmurray9268]

Not a dwelling

[@marcovallejo3]

I looked for information about the “first temple” after watching the Kurzgesagt video and couldn’t been happier to find out your channel had made one. Thank you.

[@starwarsisdead5731]

This is one of the best videos on this topic. Well done.

[@joeansolabehere2359]

I love your videos. Really well researched and presented.

[@kirkjohnson9353]

"Symbolically charged circular enclosure with beer" - it's the worlds first Tavern

[@BlankUberEverybody]

Fantastic presentation--so much info imparted but in a manner that does not overwhelm the viewer--I got more out of this narrative than I did from several 1 hour docs on GT. this was extremely well written

[@Holammer]

This is my 40k headcanon, but Göbekli Tepe is clearly the site where The Emperor of Mankind was born. :D Maybe you should do an episode on religion in the 40K universe?

[@basilofgoodwishes4138]

Holammer Problem is that the God emperor was born in the 8th Millennium BC and he lived in central Anatolia, not southeast Anatolia.

[@tedtimmis8135]

These are superb videos. Thank you!

[@dd-ly4lx]

A great video! I was wondering why no one seems to have considered Gobekli Tepe as the worlds first shopping Mall, like a Chinese "wet" market where everyone brings bats, monkeys or ducks, foxes, pigs, to sell or barter for goods... or snakes and spiders for magical potions. i think it a bit much to imagine that everyone from miles around would come just for religion, but they would have come for miles for the first flea market to barter their hunter-gatherer catch. David Shepard Assoc. Professor

[@KungKras]

Imagine if it was just a really old beer brewery xD Or even better. A holy beer brewery!!!!! These guys did it before belgian monks!

[@ReligionForBreakfast]

+KungKras Hah, I love this theory! Better trademark that name “Holy Beer Brewery.”

[@vicenterivera188]

You got it. It's a bar... It's decorated, people come from afar to join their friends there and serves beer. What else could it be?

[@orderofazarath7609]

The first thing ever humanity decided to build was a brewery/pub. Someone got his priorities straight xD

[@carbine090909]

Vincente Rivera: that was my first thought; I could see the cartoon in my mind. :-)

[@mephi654]

KungKras wrote: "Imagine if it was just a really old beer brewery xD" . . Have you seen the images of the creatures carved there? Not the panther or scorpions, but instead the creatures that seemed to be a conglomeration of animals and mankind. Winged scorpion men, like the Greeks would have Centaurs or Minotaur's. Have you seen the images of human ears being grown on the back of a mouse? If not, check it out: www.google.com/search?q=mouse+growing+ear&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&client=firefox-b-1 . . . So, if one of the carvings was of a mouse growing a human ear, would we still call it a Temple? Or, would we instead say it was a Biological or Genetic Lab? Your joke may be closer to the truth then science is willing to admit. The *_reason_* given for the flood, was more than simple violence filling the earth; it was to prevent a destruction of his creation through the blending of it. Read Genesis 6: . 1 And it came to pass, when men began to multiply on the face of the earth, and daughters were born unto them, 2 That the sons of God saw the daughters of men that they were fair; and they took them wives of all which they chose. 3 And the LORD said, My spirit shall not always strive with man, for that he also is flesh: yet his days shall be an hundred and twenty years. 4 There were giants in the earth in those days; and also after that, when the sons of God came in unto the daughters of men, and they bare children to them, the same became mighty men which were of old, men of renown. 5 And GOD saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. 6 And it repented the LORD that he had made man on the earth, and it grieved him at his heart. - Genesis 6:1-6 . . . The words "and also after that" in verse four speak of after the Flood. The nations that God told the Hebrews to completely wipe out were again practicing vile things with species of animals 23 Neither shalt thou lie with any beast to defile thyself therewith: neither shall any woman stand before a beast to lie down thereto: it is confusion. 24 Defile not ye yourselves in any of these things: *for in all these the nations are defiled which I cast out before you:* 25 And the land is defiled: therefore I do visit the iniquity thereof upon it, and the land itself vomiteth out her inhabitants. - Leviticus 18:23-25 .

[@lunarmodule6419]

The image of a church in the vid is showing a small cathedral in Montréal (5:27) Fun fact - we built a mall right under it (we took great precautions of course) 💒

[@isababur]

I am a professional tour guide in southeastern Turkey, I visit this site many times every year. I liked your video. welcome to Turkey, i will be more than happy to guide you around.

[@setavulos]

Great video! I just found this channel and am enjoying your videos thus far. :)

[@ReligionForBreakfast]

Glad to hear it!

[@dynamic9016]

I love this channel tremendously.

[@lLadyAszneth]

Thanks to my patronage over on the channel for "Genetically Modified Skeptic" I've been enjoying your channel but the videos in order from oldest to newest and currently on this one and I've been enjoying it so far, and for the past two days I am a lifelong pagan, despite having been raised in a very strict Protestant home and then at the age of 18 reading my adoption papers finding that I had Jewish roots previously unknown to me so I converted it Judaism Reform Judaism that is and begin relearning the Bible in Hebrew all over again, or rather Hebrew class. Despite my pagan and leanings I'm also on atheist. I am a self educated person with interests in the fields of Anthropology, History and Occultism broadly speaking. Also spent about 25 years steeped in Arthurian research and monster folklore. While I am no expert, I agree with Banning's premise on the structure. Studying some Norse mythology and early European Celtic societies it seems these houses were multipurpose and could have also been a hub for travelers. Seems the most likely. Stay safe out there. Aszneth

[@barniespacullie3812]

Loving your channel. Actually helped clear up some misconceptions I had about Gnostics, luckily right before I went on a podcast giving my thoughts on something. You seem like a great source, I would love your email so I can hit you with some questions now and then.

[@DarkSaber-1111]

Patreon is your friend

[@michaelmcdonnell5998]

Do you fancy a beer? How do I drink it? We haven't invented pots yet!

[@lallyoisin]

The axe symbol is a 🍄 no vessel required!

[@ndko]

Wooden bowls.

[@hecate235]

Honestly! Any 9yo child of the time could have woven a water-tight cup out of grasses. Fur, leather, wood, baskets, textiles -- none of that preserves well. Too many archeologists seem to think only about hunting technology.

[@cheryldeboissiere7824]

They actually made beer!

[@annonimooseq1246]

hecate235 or if not woven vessels, maybe hide wineskins? Idk if those were a thing at that time or not but it seems plausible

[@irishoxley994]

This is the most informative video on gobekli that I've seen ever.

[@njm3211]

Very informative. Thanks

[@katew.9402]

Great video, thanks!

[@christophvaerten3841]

Love your channel...

[@pgoughms]

Excellent video!

[@klomax7089]

Wow this is fascinating!

[@craigterris1802]

Sounds a bit like chako canyon in new mexico, the "great houses" served as communal residences as well as religious sites, and hosted people from many different tribes.

[@charlescrawford5417]

Thank you💙

[@lst9701]

I love your videos! It would be cool to learn about sites that have been diacovered but not yet exvavated and researched by archaeologists. Or significant artifacts/sites deatroyed in kiddle east conflict

[@jackpullen3820]

It is so fascinating to me and some questions I suppose will never be answered, such as the reason for it having been buried. Was it to hide it, or by others coming later burying it out of fear, or perhaps something else entirely. That is why we call these things Wonders of The World...

[@NotoriousJ.J.B.]

One word comes to mind to me: commune. Like the way Shaolin monks live on the same grounds as their temples. It could be somewhat of a complex.

[@aniksamiurrahman6365]

But how about a palace? A palace with temple complex was pretty common in middle east. Jerusalem temple 8500+ years after Göbekli Tepe was one such Palace with temple complex.

[@susanbergman9765]

Maybe it's a great hall or a long hall for the area ruled over by a chieftain and counsel used for feasting, meetings, and ceremonies.

[@tsos4957]

I love your channel!

[@ReligionForBreakfast]

Thanks! Glad you like the vids.

[@Shuffledhearts]

Around 5:30 is that Church in Toronto by chance? Also, awesome video. It is important for people with actual knowledge to talk about these kinds of things and not to let the conspiracy theorists have the only word on the matter. It's also just a rad topic in itself.

[@gorillajock]

I've always been curious about the huge megalithic stone "temples" of Malta that date back to the early bronze age I believe. Wikipedia has an article about them, but the last I checked it really doesn't say much or even adequately explain the reason we call them temples. Would you consider doing a video on them?

[@videoghostreviews5326]

Fascinating stuff

[@StarlitSeafoam]

Filling the site with dirt makes sense if you want to make a foundation for other buildings better suited to your current needs, especially if there were no roofs on the original stone circles. Plus, adding dirt might simply have been a way to shore up falling pillars or make a better floor, or even to shorten the pillars so that a roof could be added as the uses of the circles shifted. I also think the site could easily have been a religious, political, and economic site. Whenever you have a large gathering, there is opportunity to trade goods as well as social capital (thus politics) and maybe re-assert whatever unifying ideas (quite possibly religious) that first convinced everyone to work together to build the site. Especially since it was built in such a visible spot, where smoke from fires would have marked its location to anyone in the plains below, it seems to me it was built to draw people to it.

[@chuckmclaughlin9490]

Since plaster was found on the site, perhaps the stone pillars are made of cement? If so, they could have built forms for pouring the cement mixture covered around by dirt and after curing, the dirt was removed and you had a standing column!

[@onbedoeldekut1515]

I'd push the dating back at least a little, as the plaster-covered wall enclosures were a later addition, with the enclosures being apparently 'open' standing stone circles before becoming enclosed some unknown amount of time later.

[@reececrump8483]

To be brewing before even having pots is amazing

[@TheREALDJFruitLoops]

Malta Island Temples are quite old also, and the Malta island temples was made in dedication to a figurine that had been created 40,000 years ago (Venus figurines which is probally the first worshiped being).

[@seadawg93]

Gordon White (occultist/author/podcast) talks a lot about Gobekli Tepe. In one of his podcasts he discusses how "temple predates the town" and the historical significance of the star-temple/pilgrimage site predating towns, cities and agrarian culture (obviously he disagrees with the "it's not a temple" alternative).

[@ReligionForBreakfast]

Yeah, I'm not sure if I agree with his statements then. If those troughs were indeed used for brewing beer...then they definitely were farming around Göbekli Tepe. And the people who made the site presumably lived near it in some sort of village. So it probably predates the domestication of draft animals but not village life.

[@seadawg93]

Fair enough. That fits more within the standard historical narrative and I haven't read his first book "Star.Ships" yet so I don't know how/if it is addressed. There are some interesting articles though, referencing Gobekli Tepe and other places that don't easily fit with the historical myth/narrative/interpretation, on complex cultures before agriculture.

[@seadawg93]

Quick follow up (even if you disagree, the quotes below are must read for anyone doing religious studies! :) ): ngm.nationalgeographic.com/print/2011/06/gobekli-tepe/mann-text A couple great quotes from the article: "We used to think agriculture gave rise to cities and later to writing, art, and religion. Now the world’s oldest temple suggests the urge to worship sparked civilization." "Anthropologists have assumed that organized religion began as a way of salving the tensions that inevitably arose when hunter-gatherers settled down, became farmers, and developed large societies..." "...Göbekli Tepe, to Schmidt's way of thinking, suggests a reversal of that scenario: The construction of a massive temple by a group of foragers is evidence that organized religion could have come before the rise of agriculture and other aspects of civilization." There are, of course, counter arguments at the end of the article. Another interesting thing about Gobekli Tepe is that we only know about it because it was intentionally buried. Any number of similar sites may have existed in the past and just not survived.

[@ReligionForBreakfast]

Interesting quotes. I'll check it out. And the intentional burial of the site is kind of weird. I'd be curious to learn more about that.

[@seadawg93]

It IS weird. If you fins anything interesting, ...I'd be interested. I've seen a couple theories, but they seem to be random guesses to me (even MORE so than any theories about such an ancient site).

[@colekraiss668]

This site was also astronomically aligned to represent and follow the precession of the equinoxes. Quite astonishing if you are familiar.

[@ReligionForBreakfast]

Oh I didn't come across that in my research. That is astonishing indeed.

[@sarahharris2729]

Neolithic tomb Newgrange (circa 3,200 BC) in Ireland is also structurally formed so that the light from the sun, lights up the tomb passage on just one day of the year, the shortest day of the year. Structures this large and labour intensive in construction with astronomical alignments that have meaning to that culture, including the pyramids of Giza, I think had to have a religious significance. It's too much hard work unless there was a non-mundane reason. Something bigger than life itself. I think it was a religious structure originally, but then out of reasons of function, probably was used for other things, (shelter from a storm perhaps? Makes sense to go in!) It would be like a shame to waste such a structure on just worship reasons for that time, considering the work put into it. Also, sacrificing of alcohol and animals may have happened and a feast followed? What really makes me wonder is what is the impetus to suddenly decide to build it at all? What reason? A supernatural event that awed or scared people? Well that would be going into pseudo-history territory/tales of Atlanteans and I'll leave that to the Graham Hancocks of this world. I wonder what it was like to be them in their day? Tip: remember that 90% of it is still underground as they have found with radar. Its even more immense than you are describing if you can truly visualize that for its time.

[@ariellehart9312]

Love your mini-lectures! Thank you! I have a master's degree in Religious Studies. I majored in Zoroastrianism, Tibetan Buddhism, and Gnosticism. Take care. Peace, Arielle

[@9gagHasMySoul]

The general consensus amongst prehistoric archeologists (of the francophone and germanophone schools, at least) is that its a ritual site. When we covered it in class, the idea of it being a living space was never brought up so its either prominent in anglosaxon archeological circles, or its not a widely supported hypothesis.

[@exoplanet11]

The youtube channel "Ancient Architects' has a whole series on Göbekli Tepe. With a number of recently published finds.

[@Vactory]

This video was much better than I expected, coming from a channel called "ReligionForBreakfast"

[@jamiegaddis9363]

I think the key to understand Gobekli Tepi is pillar 43. The animal figures represent the signs of the constellations that the sun would rise in during the summer and winter solstice and the spring and fall equinoxes at the time of construction. The vulture figure with the disc symbol is the summer solstice constellation, while the three handbag figures at the top with the animal figures next to each one are the winter solstice and spring and fall equinoxes with the respective constellation shown as its animal figures. Using the solar recession cycle you can determine the time which would correspond with when the solstices and equinoxes would be aligned with those constellations. There is a headless figure on the pillar which probably represents some major catastrophe that occurred at that time and prompted the construction of the building.

[@wehart2950]

Gobekli Tepe was an astrological observatory similar to Stonehenge and lots of other ancient structures. The carved characters were anthropomorphised representations of celestial objects like star constellations, the sun and moon and even comets, similar to the way the characters in the zodiac like the crab, the ram, the bull, the fish etc... are. The pillars were used to track the movements of objects across the sky. People would line objects up so that Sun would line up with several stones and the shadow could be tracked on other stones. There was most likely some religious connotation to these observations and structures, but the tracking of celestial objects and the seasonal predictions they helped people make was there main purpose.

[@Andy_Babb]

Wtf am I just finding this channel now when I watch so much ancient history videos on here? Sheesh. Great channel

[@DarkMoonDroid]

Maybe it's some kind of hybrid thing between the Caves in which they used to draw pictures of animals and hands and Temples.

[@lukeuid-mindfulnessmarried673]

@ReligionForBreakfast the book I'm currently reading is 'Inside the Neolithic Mind' by David Lewis-Williams and David Pearce and it deals with Göbekli Tepe and many other Neolithic structures and their religious significance. I've found it particularly interesting because the authors argue for the role that social contracts and consciousness contracts play in the building of these structures. They consider them as an expression of the Neolithic mind's conception of the cosmos and their experiences with altered states of consciousness. Therefore the 'religious' experiences which occur under for example psychedelic substances or ritual dances go hand in hand with their understanding of their immediate environment. Therefore, as you said, conception of 'temple' and 'house' would be more inter-related than a 21st century mind might be lead to believe. They argue at one point how going into a living space is not only a practical day to day action but also an entrance into a larger cosmological and spiritual world, intertwined with the mundane (our understanding of the mundane). I don't know if you're familiar with this work and I have yet to finish it as of this moment, but would love to hear your opinion on this. I know I'm commenting relatively late but would still love to hear. Other than that, love your videos man! They're immensely helpful in creating a healthier understanding of religion/s.

[@jbtownsend9535]

Charged Feasting in the pre-pottery neolithic musta' been pretty hectic.

[@BrumbleBush]

Very interesting that there is evidence of brewing beer, but we are still told that agriculture wasn’t developed yet... I just think that would require way more forging than what is practical.

[@yourlocaltoad5102]

We have no archeological finds that prove that agriculture was developed yet, but it’s still assumed that there was agriculture. Archaeologists just tend to only make definitive statements when we can prove it, since the field is already often attacked. But it’s very likely that the people already had at least a very basic form of agriculture. We just don’t have any definitive proof of that

[@m_d1905]

Perhaps like Stonehenge, to mark the seasons. Also as a place to store was hunted and gathered or grown? So when enough food was stored, the people would have a ritual like party to be thankful for having the food? Just kind of think "out loud" if you will.

[@danielangelov91]

You should really dig deep into Bulgaria. Bogomils. There are also some preeeeeeeeeeeety old towns in here. A month ago was discovered the oldest town in Europe - around 6700 years old. It has at places 5m wide defensive wall. Protobulgarinas, Thracians ... I rarely give feedback and ideas, but I appretiate your approach.

[@hugrit4027]

I think that Gobekli Tepe was most probably a mark place, that let hunter-gatherer's from around know where they where and what they going to encounter in each direction.

[@wasabij]

The Barrens Crossroads.

[@hugrit4027]

@@wasabij What's that?

[@ANTSEMUT1]

Could it have been a building for various tribes to come together in a council to discuss how they should interact with each other? Like some sort of proto parliament?

[@TreespeakerOfTheLand]

I had to read So fair a House for a class and it was really technical. I just had to skim the parts about the construction, because I know nothing about archeaology. Anyway, the part about the use of the word temple was interesting. Could it be a good idea to touch upon ethnocentrism is other videos? While studying religion, you should be aware of that bias, I think.

[@ReligionForBreakfast]

Yeah, archaeology is a technical field. I'm lucky to have had some training in it. And yes, excellent suggestion. We also need to be aware of western-centric bias and Christian-centric bias too when studying religion. Edward Said's research on orientalism might be an appropriate video topic.

[@TreespeakerOfTheLand]

ReligionForBreakfast I don't know that research, but isn't Orientalism the study of Islam with Western-centric bias?

[@ReligionForBreakfast]

Broader than just Islam.....also encompasses Middle East and East Asia.

[@TreespeakerOfTheLand]

ReligionForBreakfast Also, I find your informal clothing to give a more relaxing touch to the video. It seems less lecture-like, which I think would fit better in a KZbin environment. I mean, you might try to think how you want to come across: like a professor and thus with more authority to your video or like a "normal" person and thus sacrificing some authority for a more appealing touch. You might already have thought about it, though ;)

[@ReligionForBreakfast]

Haha I do think about what i wear. So you think the sweater looks better than the blazers I've worn in the past?

[@pedrolopa2]

The fact that humans were able to do this with so little technology is literally unbelievable. Also I am wondering - does this complex follows any specific alignment with the stars? We know that old human civilizations had a very good understanding of stars, I wonder if it's the case for them too.

[@ericgeorge5531]

Gobekli Tepe is obviously a hotel. Bring steak and fruit in your coin purse if you want beer. Wouldnt it be cool if there was a subway to Derinkuyu?

[@santiagoaguirre3862]

It's my understanding that the word "templum" in Latin didn't actually refer to the building per se but to a space dedicated to a deity on which an "aedis" (i.e., a building such as a sacred edifice) could be built. If that's the case, then can we still call it a pre-historic templum, or at best a proto-templum?

[@user-gh4zb9qj8j]

What was the Christian church you showed at 5:42?

[@christopheradamtube]

I wonder about something more like mini-stadiums, or something akin to our MMA fighting rings. (That, and define modern sport and its anthropomorphic images, tailgating, and brewing as "religious.")

[@annalisette5897]

Some researchers believe a number of old "temple" sites and complexes had to do with time and calendar observances and that being able to know or predict the seasons had to do with agriculture and the beginnings settlements of early humans. I will let others sort that out but wish to share a personal observation. Someone close to me had a stroke (CVA) which caused a variety of damages to his brain. This damage absolutely took his ability to understand time, either hourly or by calendar. (If it was dark outside and the moon and stars were shining, he could not understand why, say if the clock showed 10:00, it was night and not day.) Anyway, my point is that having no understanding of time takes away a big chunk of what it is to be human. Such a person flounders with no idea what comes next. If our early human forebears once lived somewhat like this, it makes sense that stone monuments as the first calendars, led to civilisation. I had never read before that Gobekli Tepe might have been a communal living space. THAT could make a lot of sense in explaining why it was buried. As the premises became dirty, filthy, polluted...whatever...maybe new layers of dirt or clay were poured over the as a measure of cleanliness.

[@ANTSEMUT1]

I don't think pre agricultural humans have no understanding of time it might be different, but having none seems highly unlikely.

[@siamakaghazeinali]

good video

[@intelligenceservices]

the only reason for large columns is to support the tons of rubble that collapsed and buried the site. it was not buried by people as is tirelessly flogged for some annoying reason. it was an underground complex, there's another underground city in Turkey, it was just made differently.

[@theGhoulman]

The art at the site is all 'relief' (as in sculpture). RELIEF! Not paint on stone, not carvings, but a form not to be seen a thousand years after this site (I could be wrong there, pfft sorta?). Wow! At what point did someone in the neolithic age think; HEY, I know, let's create an illusion of form from the rock? That alone freaks me out. Freaks me out more how so fabulously beautiful it is done. Not in a 'yea ancient peeps' sense but ACTUAL fabulously well done work. Did I say WOW? Whatever this site is, represents, or as a part of human history, it's scary well done for the time it was done.

[@patrickfle9172]

To me, Göbekli Tepe looks like a group of permanent 'yurts-in-a-pit'. Yurts have a central structure of two wooden pillars as well, that carry the roofing. With a semi permanent settlement in pits with pillars and stone walls, there'd be less stuff to carry around for nomads to switch between fixed settlements. So maybe it's remnants of a gradual change to permanent housing

[@TWOCOWS1]

Thank you for continuing to record and show the new Mirazan sites (the original, local Kurdish name for the recent official gov name). Mirazan ("miracle maker"). the local, childless women give offering at these hills, hoping for a child. The fertility myth of the hills, still lingers. Mirazan is the meaningful, localname for this entire super old civilization/culture. A lot better than the silly name of Gobekli ("potbelly")-- given to it by the ruling government there . I hope you continue showing us more and more of the Mirazan sites as they get dug up

[@clifb.7182]

As modern humans, we do tend to obsess over the specific ideas that are important to us today, however, I'm surprised that no one has even mentioned the role it might have played in the development or utilization of what was then the science of astrology. The early science of astrology was considered extremely important in such fields as navigation, medicine and agriculture all the way up until about the Middle Ages when it began its gradual transition into the fortune telling role we know today.

[@lynnmacdiarmid6590]

At 3:30 marker the letter H like at Puma Punku Bolivia

[@mr.p5782]

First, thank you for not calling this a temple. I troubles me that most archeologists can’t think outside of there own time period and default to calling everything either a tomb or a temple. Second, I do hope that sites such as this and other anthropological discoveries finally make scholars realize that we had a vast agrarian culture before the last glacial period.

[@ScottCarroll]

It seems like a meeting place, maybe for nomadic tribes to gather. I think the animals would be representative of the tribes. The stones then being a constant representative of each tribe.

[@alpaslansahin2789]

Magnificent

[@xthe_moonx]

was it really covered over intentionally or could it have just been abandoned and then the weather covered it up until waaay later when someone built on top?

[@arealassassin]

No, it's on top of, and part of, a hill. Nowhere for "stuff" to fall from to cover it. The material was definitely transported UPHILL to cover it... it had to be intentional.

[@chansesturm7103]

@@arealassassin Does that necessarily negate the possibility of debris having been blown in by the wind (in addition to erosion of the hill itself) and accumulating over the span of 11,000 years? With such a huge gap in time between when it was built and when it was found I imagine it's fairly difficult to determine whether its being covered up was intentional or not.

[@jakeyd25]

good channel

[@39Thorns]

"Intentional burial" could have been a sod roof that wasn't maintained, and fell in.

[@onbedoeldekut1515]

You might be interested to learn of Dr? Martin Sweatman's (of Edinburgh Uni) 'hobby' regarding GT, he goes into some incredible depth with his personal hypotheses, some of it's a little spurious, but it's all definitely worth a look. His personal specialty focuses on geology, but the scope of his channel is far greater than just geolocical. His KZbin channel 'Prehistory Decoded' has what I would consider the best 'fringe theory' proposals about the site (and deeper prehistory) to date.

[@sophroniel]

"Temple" is also what high peaks/mountains were referred to in ancient semetic contexts, a kind of natural "high space", literally closer to the sky, stars and/or god/s. The idea of mountains being holy spaces permeates the Western canon to this day so much it's harder to find areas, people or beliefs north of the Nile and west of the Euphrates that doesn't associate mountains with holy places.

[@yourlocaltoad5102]

I love how the comments are filled with people who all know the definitive age, purpose and makers of this structure. But I really don’t understand why none of these people share their insights and the findings that led to these conclusions with the archaeologists that do the actual work

[@taylorbrogdon1834]

What are we to do other than theorize? I don’t see the harm in it.

[@DBCisco]

How do you tell a "Temple" form any other structure ? I have all kinds of "symbolic imagery" in my house as well as stuffed animals and cool architecture. Can I claim is it a religious site ? I could use the tax breaks. ')

[@irfaanrahim4523]

LOL, that just cracked me up!!

[@arthurias7693]

I doubt that these people would have put in all that effort for a regular house or living space. Think about it - these guys moved massive pieces of stone, finely chiseled artwork into it, and did it all with primitive tools.. again, why go through all that effort for just a house? I suppose it could be the equivalent of a kings house, or perhaps they had a lot of spare time on their hands and wanted to make a cool building just for the sake of it, but I don't find either to be nearly as likely as it being a religious site of some sort. Also, if this was just how these people created houses, where are all the other "houses"? Surely there were more people in their population than can fit into this site.. it is most likely that the houses or dwellings these people lived in were made of materials that were more temporary, like wood for examples, and the fact that this was made of stone - a very hard material to work with - shows that they wanted this site to stand the test of time. All in all, it is something special, much more significant than a simple house.

[@russelmurray9268]

No u can't

[@lunam7249]

you need soooo much help....what is your question?

[@DBCisco]

So many brainwashed idiots.

[@daniels4338]

I was walking through an abandoned mining complex a couple years ago, on the east coast. Shuttered for nearly 50 years, iirc. Came upon a group of hobos and they scattered. They dropped a bunch of shivs on their way out. Also, you could tell they were using some old smelting pots to make prison wine, probably from foraged berries and local barley. I didn't think for one second those hobos were the ones who built the mining complex.

[@ParadoxapocalypSatan]

They worshipped Shiva?

[@DefaultDerrick]

This is a good point actually.

[@Paul-ou1rx]

That's just the food court. Wait till they find the rest of the mall.

[@Shimarenda]

I've watched this video a few times, and some others about the site. For some reason, this is the first time it occurred to me that they were making plaster before pottery!

[@happyone4753]

Superb Video. A Must See video by all researchers around the world. I am very sorry for my 4 long comments below. But I had to add to an excellent video my incredible anthropological discovery and research. The Cassi or Khasi are described as an Iron Age Tribe of Britain. Please read my detailed history of the Khasis below. I am convince that they erected the Göbekli Tepe complex. My heartiest congratulations for the great video.

[@karmathegiant]

What if they first set the pillars upright then backfilled around them/ramp. Then you drag the top piece up the ramp and placed in position. Then you dig out the infill!

[@DanChainsawman]

Could this temple possibly be a center of government? It's not unknown in both modern and ancient times for religious authorities to be secular authorities as well. I'm sure you well know just how much the religiosity creeps out of every crack and pore of the Vatican, but while doing so, it doesn't dismiss the fact that part of the roles the Vatican plays are educational and administrative, though you'd never guess that by looking at the place.

[@ReligionForBreakfast]

Yeah that's an interesting point. I don't know what "government" would look like in 11,000 BCE...but there obviously was a level of organization here to build such a massive complex.

[@marksimons8861]

Neolithic and government are not terms that come readily to mind.

[@Scribe13013]

Definitely the de facto government

[@mime514]

Well , i don't think that this civilization could have been at this level of culturalization

[@ANTSEMUT1]

@@marksimons8861 what about various tribes coming together to discuss how they interact with each other, like some sort of inter tribal council meeting. To which they reaffirm or renegotiate every few years.

[@lukasaberle3243]

Anyone know what the name is of the temple at 5:35?

[@annonimooseq1246]

This is probably little help but it looks to me like it’s from southern India I think?

[@HumanBeing1974]

Maybe it was a traditional place in the local area for winter time. Alcohol has been known to " warm " one up during the cold months.

[@davidoverstreet2875]

The drinking of the alcoholic beverages was part of the religious ceremony of the time, and was partaken of only by the priesthood, most likely with either metal dippers or cups. And yes, it was used to make the partakers intoxicated, thus feeling what they imagined the gods felt like, enhancing the communication connection between them.

[@karacerept]

In my opinion it was built to promote social gatherings. Even the purpose of building it was to encapsulate the concepts of team work, communal togetherness and to provide mutual goal to large amount of people. An immense feat of engineering and philosophical ideas merged into a place to encourage more ideas. And to me through these gatherings they came with the idea to bury the site as it was too modern for that time and was probably getting attention from invasive tribes and they feared that this site may get misused in future.

[@glike2]

I propose a new theory: Göbekli Tepe was a bakery for grain gatherers to exchange grain for bread. Grains could be stored for later consumption. Beer could also have been produced.

[@marjanperveinis8355]

Beer is one of the oldest drinks humans have produced. The first chemically confirmed barley beer dates back to at least the 5th millennium BC in Iran, and was recorded in the written history of ancient Egypt and Mesopotamia and spread throughout the world. Though, the ancient Chinese artifacts suggested that beer brewed with grapes, honey, hawthorns, and rice were produced as far back as 7,000 BC.