I was dead wrong about that bronze age site in Turkey

For years I rolled my eyes whenever someone brought up Göbekli Tepe. I figured it was just another overhyped dig site where they found a few old rocks and called it a revolution. The whole "oldest temple" claim sounded like a marketing gimmick to get tourist dollars. Then I actually went through the excavation reports from Klaus Schmidt's team. The real kicker for me was the T-shaped pillars with animal carvings that predate pottery by thousands of years. When I saw the stratigraphy showing they deliberately buried the whole complex around 8000 BC, that changed my mind completely. I still think some interpretations go too far, but the basic timeline checks out. Anyone else have a site they dismissed at first but came around on?

2 comments

2 Comments

garcia.charles19d ago

Man, I feel this. I once dismissed Catalhoyuk as just a pile of old mud bricks until I saw those wall paintings of volcanoes erupting and realized hey, I was the one being dense.

lindaw2919d ago

That volcano painting really changes how you see the place, doesn't it? I had the same wake-up call with Gobekli Tepe, thought it was just old rocks until I saw the carved animals and realized how much I was missing.