The Mystery of Göbekli Tepe

Göbekli Tepe, in southeast Turkey, is the oldest monument in the world. The earliest layer dates back to 9000 BC, making it more than twice as old as the oldest pyramid. The pillars are up to twenty feet high and weigh up to ten tons.

Yet it was not discovered until 1994 because it was buried under debris some time after 8000 BC. Scientists do not know why is was buried, but the solution to this mystery should become clear when we think about how it fits into the history of religion.

This monument was built by the Natufian culture. In general, fixed settlements began when agriculture began, and the nomadic hunting and gathering people who lived earlier did not build permanent houses or monuments. But the Natufian culture was an exception. They were hunters and gatherers, and the mainstay of their diet was wild wheat, which was so abundant at the time that they were able to build permanent or semi-permanent settlements where it was found. This monument is so ancient because it was built before agriculture began.

After thousands of years of gathering wild wheat, people in the area began cultivating wheat - the earliest farming in the world. Farming probably began gradually. They carried wheat back to their settlements for processing and noticed that more wheat grew where they dropped grains by mistake. Then they began dropping grains deliberately.  Then they realized that the grain was even more likely to grow if they dug the ground before dropping it and watered it in dry times - at which point they were farmers. It probably took so long for them to begin farming because it was so much extra work that they did it only after population pressure made the supply of wild wheat inadequate for them. 

The religions of hunter and gatherer societies generally center on animals, who are treated as gods or totems. The pillars at Göbekli Tepe have many pictures of animals on them, such as this picture of a vulture, who may have been considered a god of the dead. 

But most early agricultural societies have religions that center on a mother goddess, representing the fertility of the earth. Çatalhöyük, an agricultural proto-city west of Göbekli Tepe that dates back to 7000 BC, is known for the many statues of mother goddesses found there, such as the goddess sitting on a throne flanked by two lionesses that is shown above. 

What is the most obvious reason that a religious site would be obliterated, as Göbekli Tepe was? Some new religion has taken over and wants to destroy all traces of the old religion, which it considers a heresy. 

Göbekli Tepe seems to be the earliest surviving evidence of a religious reformation that destroyed the old idols to promote the worship of its new idols. 

They must have been dedicated to their new religion, since it was hard work to bury the old religion: archeologists estimate that they covered it with about 500 cubic yards of rubble.  But it was successful: the site remained hidden and unknown for 9,000 or 10,000 years. 

photos of Göbekli Tepe by:
Teomancimit - Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=17377542
Sue Fleckney - https://www.flickr.com/photos/96594331@N03/20385309880/, CC BY-SA 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=93559558