In the Beginning: Religion at the Dawn of Civilization

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Some call it Turkey’s Stonehenge. In fact, the circles of massive stones standing high on a hill are more than 5,000 years older than Britain’s famous megaliths. From Göbekli Tepe (“Potbelly Hill”) in southeastern Turkey, you can see 50 or more miles in all directions, including the sites where some of the earliest evidence of agricultural plant domestication has been discovered. Now, these stone circles may be turning the established theory about the origins of religion and civilization on its head.

Since 1995, German archaeologist Klaus Schmidt and his archaeological team have 058 been excavating at Göbekli Tepe, 7 miles east of Urfa (the Hellenistic city of Edessa). Thus far, at least four monumental stone circles have been uncovered (as well as three smaller, later enclosures). In each circle, ten to twelve pillars are connected by walls of quarry stone surrounding a pair of taller pillars in the middle.¹ Radiometric studies indicate more than a dozen such circles are still buried in the hill.

Anthropomorphic features—arms, hands and minimalist garments—and images of animals are carved on the sides of many of the standing stones. The T-shaped monolithic limestone pillars—each weighing several tons and some more than 18 feet tall—form large circular enclosures between 33 and 66 feet in diameter.

Based on the style of the monoliths and their carvings, Schmidt confidently dates them between 10000 and 8000 B.C.E., the dawn of the Pre-Pottery Neolithic. This is thousands of years before the first evidence of human writing in Mesopotamia (c. 3200 B.C.E.), before the construction of Stonehenge (c. 3000–2000 B.C.E.) and at least 6,000 years before the most ancient Egyptian pyramid (the step pyramid at Saqqara, c. 2660 B.C.E.).

There is no evidence of a contemporaneous village anywhere near Göbekli Tepe. The excavations have not revealed any residential buildings—only sanctuaries—nor any evidence of the use of fire (for cooking, heat, etc.). On the other hand, the excavation has recovered tens of thousands of animal bones. The workers hunted and foraged for their food. As Schmidt says, Göbekli Tepe appears to be a religion-specific site—a place of animal sacrifice and ritual, not of domestic or agricultural activity. Rising 50 feet above the surrounding plain, it certainly qualifies as a “high place,” which the Hebrew Bible so often associates with religious rituals and early encounters with God. The limestone pillars may represent priests or deities, according to Schmidt. Many of the news reports discussing Göbekli Tepe call it the world’s first temple, and indeed it is the earliest known sanctuary built for communal ritual activity.

Despite the primitive age, the artisanship of the carvings is remarkably high. Hundreds of people must have devoted centuries to carving the decorations and erecting these massive monoliths. Where they came from remains a mystery. And how were they housed?

The carefully carved reliefs include lions, bulls, boars, foxes, gazelles, asses, snakes and other reptiles, insects, arachnids and birds, particularly vultures and water fowl. At the time the shrine was erected, the surrounding country was apparently lusher and more capable of sustaining this variety of wildlife, before centuries of settlement and cultivation resulted in Göbekli Tepe’s sparse conditions today.

The circular formations and images of vultures may remind BAR readers of a recent article by Rami Arav about the later Chalcolithic site of Rogem Hiri (4500–3500 B.C.E.), located east of the Sea of Galilee.^a Arav suggested that Rogem Hiri was an excarnation site where people laid out their dead, exposing the bodies to be picked clean by vultures before collecting and burying the bones in ossuaries—well known from the Chalcolithic period—that archaeologists have found. Some human bones discovered in the fill at Göbekli Tepe have led the excavator to conclude that the site also served as a primary burial ground, where other rituals related to the dead were performed.

Continuing excavations may further elucidate the exact function of Göbekli Tepe, but its use as a religious site seems clear. For more than a century, anthropological and sociological theory has held that religion had its beginnings after village life had been established. Humans began as hunter-gatherers; then, it was assumed, with the rise of 059 060 agriculture came the necessity of sedentary life, and so village life. This in turn led to the development of religion, in part as a means to placate the divine so there would be abundant crops, and also to help people get along with each other while living in close contact.² The sanctuary at Göbekli Tepe, before the development of agriculture, has now called this theory into question.

For students of the Bible, Göbekli Tepe shows that religious sites and sacrifices may have already been an important part of human life at the dawn of human civilization, even before the emergence of village life. The story of Cain and Abel presents primitive people who offer sacrifices to their God (Genesis 4:1–6). Göbekli Tepe reinforces what is clear from Israelite, Babylonian, Hittite and Assyrian cultures: Ancient religion involved sacrifices, and thus priests and sanctuaries. On a pillar at Göbekli Tepe, an anthropomorphic being in ceremonial garb is depicted alongside the sacrificial animals. This is likely a priest, an identification supported by the statue of a man (currently in the Urfa museum) found at a nearby site; he is dressed in ceremonial attire of a religious nature. Both the Bible and the archaeological evidence seem to confirm that human beings were inherently religious from the very dawn of human civilization.

The remarkable finds still being unveiled at Göbekli Tepe may cause something of a revolution in our thinking about the origin of human civilization and the role religion played in it. The ancient people who took the enormous time and trouble to carve and move these massive stones must have cared a great deal about religion and the afterlife. It appears this has always been true of human beings, as far back as archaeological evidence can take us.

Some call it Turkey’s Stonehenge. In fact, the circles of massive stones standing high on a hill are more than 5,000 years older than Britain’s famous megaliths. From Göbekli Tepe (“Potbelly Hill”) in southeastern Turkey, you can see 50 or more miles in all directions, including the sites where some of the earliest evidence of agricultural plant domestication has been discovered. Now, these stone circles may be turning the established theory about the origins of religion and civilization on its head. Since 1995, German archaeologist Klaus Schmidt and his archaeological team have 058 been excavating at Göbekli Tepe, 7 […]