The World's Oldest Known Temple Was Home to a ‘Skull Cult’ 12,000 years ago

[Vouthon]

https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/...i-tepe-skull-cult-ancient-ruins-temple-ritual

The World's Oldest Known Temple Was Home to a ‘Skull Cult’ nearly 12,000 years ago


Göbekli Tepe, a monumental structure in southern Turkey established over 11,000 years ago, has enraptured archeologists and laypeople alike since site excavations began in the 1990s. Decorated with imaginative artwork depicting animals, people, and animalistic people, this ancient temple contains the oldest known megaliths in the world.

As if that isn't tantalizing enough, new research published in Science Advances suggests Göbekli Tepe was once home to a "skull cult." In addition to being popular fodder for band names, skull cults are communities that attach particular significance to cranial remains, often displaying them or modifying them into functional items, like mugs or drums. This behavior has many permutations in human history, but this study marks the first osteological (bone-based) evidence of how Göbekli Tepe's bygone denizens treated dead bodies and their skulls.

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Modified human crania from Göbekli Tepe provide evidence for a new form of Neolithic skull cult | Science Advances

The site, known as Göbekli Tepe, has already changed the way archaeologists think about the origins of civilization. Located not far from the Syrian border on a hill with a commanding view of the surrounding landscape, it boasts multiple enclosures with tall, T-shaped pillars surrounded by rings of stones, many carved with reliefs. Such structures are unique for humans at this time—a period that predates agriculture or even pottery. Researchers once thought complex religion and society came about only after agriculture guaranteed early societies a food surplus. But Göbekli Tepe’s—which predates most agriculture—suggests it might have been the other way around: Hunter-gatherers might have started domesticating crops in order to have a reliable supply of food for workers at the site where they gathered for ceremonies...​

 

[Vouthon]

 

[Vouthon]

Göbekli Tepe is the first Neolithic site where carved skulls have been uncovered. As one of the researchers notes, the ritual markings on these skulls are unlike those seen in any other contemporaneous culture: "I tried to compare to other known skeletal investigations from other sites, but there was nothing."

But then again, practically everything about this "cult complex" is unprecedented. Before the discovery of the "temple", hunter-gatherers had not been thought capable of having either the social sophistication, manpower or resources to create monumental construction, let alone the gargantuan engineering effort involved in creating Gobekli Tepe. It also leads us to question what came first: religion or settled civilization. According to Gobekli, it was religion that originally brought human beings together to construct elaborate centres for cultic worship long before the invention of agriculture, sedentary living, pottery, written language or the wheel.

Another archaeologist explained in a different peer-reviewed article about the site how, “religious belief generated a need for constant costly building activity, which could only be accomplished by cooperation,” and the evidence (i.e. artistic depictions of headless humans, perforated skulls) is suggestive perhaps of a death cult of sorts within the T-shaped pillar spaces, which helped to foster a group identity reinforced during ritually repeated events that included feasting. Restriction of the access to knowledge and participation in rituals seems to be attestable at Göbekli Tepe; indicative, perhaps, of a priestly class overseeing religious rituals millennia before such hierarchies were thought to have come into existence.

To this end Klaus Schmidt, the scientist who led the initial excavations of the site, argued: “first came the temple, then the city”.

There are no other extant PPN (pre-pottery Neolithic) sites which carry artificial skull modifications of this type, meaning that the ritualized behaviour attested here is sui generis. It suggests that something different was going on here from the more conventional kind of skull veneration, for which there is widespread evidence in Anatolia near the end of the Younger Dryas (last Ice Age).

Based upon my reading of the original peer-reviewed article, it would seem that a total of 700 human bone fragments have been recovered from the fill of the prehistoric buildings and adjacent areas. It has been suggested that the carved and decorated skulls may have been affixed to the megaliths, which are the oldest known example of monumental architecture in the world.

 

[sun rise]

As Mr. Spock would say: "fascinating". This kind of finding is something I'm interested in partly because it shows how little we know about how society developed just a short time ago in the history of humanity.

 

[Vouthon]

As Mr. Spock would say: "fascinating". This kind of finding is something I'm interested in partly because it shows how little we know about how society developed just a short time ago in the history of humanity.

Agreed, there is so much we have yet to learn about human origins and the cradle of civilization.

The archaeologists who are working on this ancient, Neolithic site run an English-language blog where they post updates for interested members of the public. You might want to check it out:


The Tepe Telegrams


Gobekli Tepe is arguably the most important archaeological find thus far, given that it seems to be a witness in stone to the pivotal phase in human history in which our ancestors started to transition from roaming hunter-gatherers into a sedentary and socially advanced culture with agriculture.

It would seem that religious belief was instrumental in making the "Neolithic Revolution" possible.

 

[sun rise]

Thanks for the link - I'm off to look at "The Tepe Telegrams".

 

[Shadow Wolf]

Fascinating find!

 

[BSL]

Is that pre Egyptian

 

[Vouthon]

Is that pre Egyptian

Yes, its a loooonnnggg long time before the civilization of Ancient Egypt.

Five thousand years separate us from the birth of ancient Egypt in c. 3100 BC with the political unification of Upper and Lower Egypt under the first pharaoh, Narmer.

The date of Gobekli Tepe (9130–8800 BC) is another five and a half millennia before the time of these Ancient Egyptians under Narmer.

In other words, there is the very same distance in time between us today in the 21st century and the Old Kingdom of Ancient Egypt, as there is between Ancient Egypt and Gobekli Tepe.

From the perspective of Pharoah Narmer in 3100 B.C., Gobekli Tepe (had he known of it) would have been as ancient to him as he is to us.

Hence the reason why the complexity of the architecture, iconography and religious rituals - predating pottery, writing, the wheel and agriculture - has had the world of archaeology agog for the past number of years. It's just astonishingly ancient and astonishingly advanced for something so ancient.

We're talking nearly 10, 000 years before Jesus Christ if you date it from the very earliest layers of the site and predating Stonehenge by 6,000 years,

 

[Shadow Wolf]

From the perspective of Pharoah Narmer in 3100 B.C., Gobekli Tepe (had he known of it) would have been as ancient to him as he is to us.

That's an interesting way to look at it.

 

[BSL]

Yes, its a loooonnnggg long time before the civilization of Ancient Egypt.

Five thousand years separate us from the birth of ancient Egypt in c. 3100 BC with the political unification of Upper and Lower Egypt under the first pharaoh, Narmer.

The date of Gobekli Tepe (9130–8800 BC) is another five and a half millennia before the time of these Ancient Egyptians under Narmer.

In other words, there is the very same distance in time between us today in the 21st century and the Old Kingdom of Ancient Egypt, as there is between Ancient Egypt and Gobekli Tepe.

From the perspective of Pharoah Narmer in 3100 B.C., Gobekli Tepe (had he known of it) would have been as ancient to him as he is to us.

Hence the reason why the complexity of the architecture, iconography and religious rituals - predating pottery, writing, the wheel and agriculture - has had the world of archaeology agog for the past number of years. It's just astonishingly ancient and astonishingly advanced for something so ancient.

We're talking nearly 10, 000 years before Jesus Christ if you date it from the very earliest layers of the site and predating Stonehenge by 6,000 years,

but .. the Pharoah was preceded by an egypt , however short lived that would have been.

 

[Vouthon]

but .. the Pharoah was preceded by an egypt , however short lived that would have been.

The historical, recorded phase of Ancient Egyptian history - in other words, the civilization we know as Ancient Egypt - begins with the first Pharaoh in 3100 BC. Prior to this, you have archaeological evidence alone of settlements comprising prehistoric Egypt.

Around 6000 BC, Neolithic settlements began to surface in Egypt. For the next few thousand years, there were various "cultures" in the geographical area we now call Egypt - Merimde, El Omari, Maadi, Amratian, Naqada cultures - but none of them were yet discernably "Egyptian". This particular civilization with its recognisable features. It was not until the last predynastic phase, that the Naqada culture began using written symbols that eventually were developed into a full system of hieroglyphs for writing the ancient Egyptian language, dating approximately from 3200 to 3000 BC.

So "Ancient Egypt" proper can only be dated from about 3200, a mere century before Narmer. The first pyramids would not be constructed until 2630 BC–2611 BC, some six hundred or eight hundred years later.

So to conclude, Gobekli Tepe predates the Ancient Egyptian civilization by 5,000 years, the first pyramids by nearly 6,000 years and even the first basic Neolithic settlements in the geographical area that would become Egypt millennia later by around 3,000 years - a thousand years longer than the time which separates us from Jesus Christ.

 

[BSL]

The historical, recorded phase of Ancient Egyptian history - in other words, the civilization we know as Ancient Egypt - begins with the first Pharaoh in 3100 BC. Prior to this, you have archaeological evidence alone of settlements comprising prehistoric Egypt.

Around 6000 BC, Neolithic settlements began to surface in Egypt. For the next few thousand years, there were various "cultures" in the geographical area we now call Egypt - Merimde, El Omari, Maadi, Amratian, Naqada cultures - but none of them were yet discernably "Egyptian". This particular civilization with its recognisable features. It was not until the last predynastic phase, that the Naqada culture began using written symbols that eventually were developed into a full system of hieroglyphs for writing the ancient Egyptian language, dating approximately from 3200 to 3000 BC.

So "Ancient Egypt" proper can only be dated from about 3200, a mere century before Narmer. The first pyramids would not be constructed until 2630 BC–2611 BC, some six hundred or eight hundred years later.

So to conclude, Gobekli Tepe predates the Ancient Egyptian civilization by 5,000 years, the first pyramids by nearly 6,000 years and even the first basic Neolithic settlements in the geographical area that would become Egypt millennia later by around 3,000 years - a thousand years longer than the time which separates us from Jesus Christ.

Any correlations to prehistoric egypt?

 

[Vouthon]

Any correlations to prehistoric egypt?

Not that I'm aware of, the timescale is much too distant - we're talking millennia here separating this site from even the first Neolithic settlements in the area that became Egypt - not to mention the geography (Anatolia versus North Africa).

 

[BSL]

Not that I'm aware of, the timescale is much too distant - we're talking millennia here separating this site from even the first Neolithic settlements in the area that became Egypt - not to mention the geography (Anatolia versus North Africa).

Maybe along the route

 

[Vouthon]

Maybe along the route

Why do you assume there is any connection in the first place between these two civilizations?

 

[BSL]

Why do you assume there is any connection in the first place between these two civilizations?

Whatelse could have happened with the Göbekli Tepe cult

 

[beenherebeforeagain]

a good summary of the neolithic, the time period that includes this site:

Neolithic - Wikipedia