DEPT. OF ARCHEOLOGY
THE SANCTUARY
The world’s oldest temple and the dawn of civilization.
by Elif Batuman
DECEMBER 19, 2011
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ABSTRACT: DEPT. OF ARCHEOLOGY about the Göbekli Tepe. Late one October evening, the writer flew to Urfa, the city believed by Turkish Muslims to be the Ur of the Chaldeans, the birthplace of the prophet Abraham. The writer was in town to visit a site that predates Abraham and Job and monotheism by some eight millennia: a vast complex of Stonehenge-style megalithic circles in the Urfa countryside. For thousands of years, this Early Neolithic structure lay buried under multiple strata of prehistoric trash. Its Turkish name is Göbekli Tepe. It’s estimated to be eleven thousand years old—six and a half thousand years older than the Great Pyramid, about a half thousand years older than the walls of Jericho. The site comprises more than sixty multi-ton T-shaped limestone pillars, most of them engraved with bas-reliefs of dangerous animals.
via G : The New Yorker.
Fascinated by story of Gobeckli Tepe. trying to find discussion started on GT where someone was suggesting that all languages had a common source, but was being dismissed by the chat group as unintelligible. I wanted to follow the argument, but lost the website. Any one know it please?