Vocabulary

 

 

 

Video

 

 
 
 
 

Transcript

 

NARRATOR: Sanliurfa, Turkey, October 1994. While plowing his field, shepherd Safak Yildiz spots a strangely shaped stone protruding from the ground. After brushing away the dirt, he realizes that it may be part of a much larger object.

Shortly after contacting the local museum with his find, he is visited by Klaus Schmidt from the German Archaeological Institute.

Hugh Newman, Author, Earth Grids: “It wasn’t until German archaeologist Klaus Schmidt visited the site and began digging they realized what was really at the site.”

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William Henry, Author, Lost Secrets of the Watchers: “What he discovered was mind blowing. After discovering the first T-shaped pillar buried at the site, he soon found more of these massive structures.”

NARRATOR: During the intensive dig, Schmidt and his team begin to unearth dozens of additional giant, stone monoliths covered in intricate carvings. Some weighing as much as 20 tons.

Paul Bahn, Archaeologist: “The site of Gobekli Tepe is a series of circular enclosures, but then in the center of each enclosure you have two particularly big, T-shaped pillars of limestone sort of facing each other.

Now many of these pillars have remarkable carvings on them, wonderful carvings and bas-reliefs of animals, birds, insects, all kinds of things. So to fashion those and carve them and set them up in these structures was just absolutely amazing.”

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NARRATOR: Archaeologists estimate that it would have taken a team of 50 men an entire week to move just one of the monolithic pillars from the limestone quarry to the top of the hill where they stand today, and over 300 hours to carve the bas-reliefs.

At this rate, each of the five stone circles unearthed so far would have required a full year to be completed. But why such a monumental site was built in the first place remains a mystery.

Paul Bahn, Archaeologist: “It’s very difficult to know what the purpose of something like Gobekli Tepe could be. And certainly Klaus Schmidt had not reached any conclusions except that it’s clearly not a settlement. It’s not a village. There is absolutely no domestic refuge.

Schmidt always hoped that it was funerary and that there would be burials underneath the walls or underneath some of the pillars or so on. But so far, they have not yet found any human remains at the site. There were no domestic plants in the site. There are only wild animal bones.

Inevitably in archeology if we don’t know what something is for we think of ritual, but really it’s pure speculation.”

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NARRATOR: Intrigued by evidence that the structure might go back to a Neolithic period, Klaus Schmidt has the sediment layers of the site radiocarbon dated.

The results indicated that the stone structures could be as much as 12,000 years old, more than 5,000 years older than mankind’s first known civilization in Mesopotamia.

More than that, it would place the construction of Gobekli Tepe to a time when mainstream scholars suggest humans were roaming the earth as hunter gatherers.

Paul Bahn, Archaeologist: “Well, the site of Gobekli Tepe really did send shockwaves through the whole world of early prehistory, because we’d never before known or imagined even that simple hunter gatherers could produce such spectacular monumental structures.

Now in archeology, really since it began, we’ve always assumed that hunter gatherers were capable of producing wonderful works of art — rock art, cave art, and things like that.

But we never imagined that they could come together in sufficient numbers to make monumental constructions like Gobekli Tepe.”

NARRATOR: But if the currently accepted timeline for mankind’s advancement is correct, is it possible that primitive hunter gatherers could have built such sophisticated, megalithic structures?

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Ancient astronaut theorists say, no. And instead, suggest that Gobekli Tepe was built by the survivors of a lost society, one that was almost entirely wiped out by a worldwide cataclysm.

And to support their claim, they point to recent evidence of a catastrophic event, which many mainstream scientists believe occurred at the very end of the last ice age, which is believed to have lasted from roughly 108,000 BC. until nearly 10,000 BC.

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Questions

 
Göbekli Tepe. The archaeological site of Göbekli Tepe was first discovered by satellite imagery. True or false? Is Göbekli Tepe in Iraq or Egypt?

Pyramids of Giza. What are the main features of Göbekli Tepe? Describe Göbekli Tepe. Does it have human depictions?

Pyramid of the Sun. Was Göbekli Tepe a village or human settlement? Did many people live there permanently?

Machu Picchu. Do archaeologists and scholars know the exact reasons why Göbekli Tepe was build?

Stonehenge. Are the Pyramids of Giza older than Göbekli Tepe?

Moai of Easter Island. Göbekli Tepe was probably constructed by farmers in between the planting and harvesting of their crops. Is this correct or incorrect?

Sacsayhuaman. Had the time-frame of events been very linear and constant, and uneventful?
 
 
 
Baalbek Stones. I have been to Göbekli Tepe. I have visited Göbekli Tepe. Yes or no? Have you been to the pyramids or other great monuments?

Nazca Lines. How might Göbekli Tepe have been constructed?

Stone Spheres of Costa Rica. Would you like to visit great or mysterious structures around the world? What structures would you like to visit?

Coral Castle. My friends and I would like to become archaeologists or writers.

Tiwanaku, Puma Punku. What might happen in the future?

Basalt columns of Nan Madol. What could or should people and governments do?