The World's Oldest Temple?
Named Gobekli Tepe, the newest archaelogical discovery might be the world's oldest temple. Sitting several miles outside of Urfa in southeastern Turkey, the temple is thought to have been made by prehistoric people without metal tools or even pottery.
Similar to Stonehenge, Gobekli Tepe is arranged by circles of stone pillars that each contain a "t-shaped" pillar in the center. The t-shaped pillars are each surrounded by smaller inward facing stones, and many of the pillars are covered by the carved out images of different animals.
Since there have been no signs of domestic life discovered anywhere near the hillside, archeologists assume Gobekli Tepe to be a sacred temple. This observation, coupled with the age of the site, make Gobekli Tepe a new candidate for the world's oldest temple.
Story suggested by: Thomas Vaughn.
Image: "Gobekli Tepe - The Turkish Stonehenge" by Lad of Pics on landofpics.blogspot.com.
Tweet- 11-18-08
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Anyone interested in
Anyone interested in Gobekli Tepe should check out David Lewis-Williams' book Inside the Neolithic Mind. He makes use of it in his argument that the agricultural revolution wasn't the direct result of changes in food production, but almost a byproduct of the necessities and accidents brought about by burgeoning shamanic activities and ritual gatherings in the Fertile Crescent.
I found it interesting that Lewis-Williams makes clear the decrease in quality of life that agriculture brought with it. For some reason I assumed this was a kind of fringe idea advocated by primitivists. Apparently many if not most archaeologists who study the period seem to take it as read. Of course Lewis-Williams, arch-rationalist, ties this in with his argument: only an activity as irrational as religion could have led to such a shift! (I'm paraphrasing and over-simplifying...)
The Temple Human
I've got Lewis-Williams' book on order from the local library. Also planning on buying a copy of your latest book Gyrus, when my next pay cheque lands in a few days. Looks to be right up my heath.
I read some commentary about the Gobekli Tempe article which I thought was interesting (here as i recall). To paraphrase from memory: if, as seems to be the case, the temple complex was built by nomadic humanity, prior to the age of settlement, then it is possible that settlement might have been experienced as if the commandment of a god. In other words, the nomadic hunter gatherers, having constructed their temporal domicile of a "god" or whatever (the temple - where eternal and temporal meet) would then have discovered time itself, in a way - because consciousness of time, and perception of time are aspects of human experience. The other aspect of this is that we began to forget about eternity...and the ego, the I, begins its heroic development, its fight against the Uroboric tide of the Mother Sea (to wax Jungian.)
How this impacts on our current era is that the human being itself can be recognised to have become the crux of time and eternity, the temple, whereby the body might be conceived of as eternal, a-temporal, and the consciousness, and language of course, as temporal, subject to time.
Anyone have any thoughts on this?
stoned templar pirates
Stroking Egos
[Schmidt points to the great stone rings, one of them 65 feet across. "This is the first human-built holy place," he says.]
Ah, the Ego-driven man-made Holy place. Well I declare! ...the rest of us live in such squalor and chaos.
Seems like a cool place otherwise.
yeah does seem cool...