Archaeologists are faced with the biggest mystery in the entire history of excavation of ancient civilizations. This is a mysterious prehistoric settlement in Turkey, Göbekli Tepe, which in Turkish means "Pot-bellied hill".
Scientists were amazed at the megalithic structures, which were erected 7 thousand years before the first pyramid appeared in Egypt, and date back to the 10th century BC. At the beginning of the excavations, archaeologists discovered and cleaned up three round rooms with a diameter of 30 meters and 39 monolithic steles, which depicted a leopard, a fox, a wild donkey, snakes, a wild boar, a duck, a tur, as well as creatures similar to humans.
Photo and drawing: N. Becker, DAI
Most of the images are carved on the surface of the pillars in relief. But there are also amazing three-dimensional sculptures. One of the most striking is the lion descending down the pillar.
On the steles excavated later, there were also images of insects, a gazelle, a crane, a mountain ram and something similar to a centipede. In the middle of one of the circular halls, resting on a floor of polished limestone slabs, stood two 5-meter stone columns weighing 50 tons. Several more of these columns were embedded in the walls of roughly cut stone. All of these images are completely unique and indicate that the people who built this complex had good artistic taste and a very accurate perception of the world.
Promotional video:
Geomagnetic scanning of the Pot-bellied Hill showed that at least ten such rounded formations are hidden in it. A small part of this complex has been excavated and scientists can only assume that it was a ritual structure. But it is completely unknown who was worshiped and what made the ancient people come together to build a truly colossal building.
A number of researchers believe that Göbekli Tepe was not a temple, but only a place where people lived, although there are no traces of human habitation and burials throughout the territory. Others believe that this place was intended for fertility rituals, and the two tall stones in the center of each circle symbolize a man and a woman. But on the pillars there are no symbols of fertility known in the Stone Age, found in other excavations (for example, "Paleolithic Venus"), and the pillars themselves in the shape of the letter "T", with a hint of a stylized human image, do not have any signs of gender.
There is an opinion that it was the construction of this complex that played an important role in the process of transition to agriculture, and therefore to the emergence of civilization in our usual view. But the most intriguing is the mystery of why, in the 8th century BC, the structures of Göbekli Tepe were buried under 500 cubic meters of soil. The head of a group of German archaeologists, Klaus Schmidt from the University of Heidelberg, noted that this was not a natural disaster at all. The ancient inhabitants of those places purposefully covered the buildings with earth, creating an artificial hill, thanks to which the temple has been preserved for many thousands of years.
Göbekli Tepe is the oldest example of monumental architecture found on our planet. It is assumed that he could become a prototype of the biblical gardens of Eden, which could be located on the hills of Anatolia now scorched by the sun. Now, as German researchers note, this prehistoric complex is fraught with many mysteries. It is not known why its creators erected new walls inside.
Used materials from the site: geolines.ru