Hello everyone! Seems like this week is flying by! I have been working hard to get create new content and figure out where to go next, and spending tons of time hiking and reflecting. I am looking forward to new adventures this semester, and have started some serious writing and editing. As I am planning on doing some more posts later this week, maybe a history and photos from a trip I took earlier this week, I will go ahead and just jump into the episode. I hope that everyone enjoys! Thank you for joining me!
Edited 01.14.2022: Sorry everyone that this is late, I have been feeling under the weather this week, nothing serious-not the big “that which shall not be named“, but it put me into bed a bit more than I was planning on this week, and I didn’t realize that I failed to publish this on time. But it’s always good to acknowledge your mistakes, whoopsies moments, and grow from them. My family was the ones letting me know that I failed to post, so thanks everyone for looking out for me and letting me know!
(All images and photography rights belong to the DAI or German Archaeological Institute, and can be found at https://www.dainst.blog/the-tepe-telegrams/photos/, following the Press Agreement posted on their website, none of the photos are being archived or used beyond this post, and the full credit for each photo is included in the caption beneath each image.)
https://www.dainst.blog/the-tepe-telegrams/the-research-project/
https://www.dainst.blog/the-tepe-telegrams/photos/
TRANSCRIPT:
Grab your shovels, and get ready to dig, It’s time for Architecture, Coffee, & Ink.
30 second Intro song
Hello, this is Hollywood C. and you’re listening to Architecture, Coffee, & Ink. A podcast dedicated to introducing concepts, detailing out designs, and tackling the architecture you might not realize the meaning behind. I’m your hostess and I am here today to start introducing you to the designs that make you wonder why.
tag line: So I ask you to brew your coffee, grab your sketch book and pen, and let’s begin.
Hello everyone! As we move into the second week of January, I am still settling into the New Year, and learning to date everything 22, but I should have that figured out sometime by December. I hope that everyone is enjoying any January Holidays and celebrations, I know I personally missed the polar bear plunge this year. But, for me this past week, well, 5 days since I released the last episode, have been pretty quiet. I have been working on some renovations, and projects, and catching up-as I said, I will be working on catching up and enjoying the semester probably right up until I start the Spring Semester in a few weeks. But I have been dusting off those good old textbooks, and writing notes, making plans.
I am stupid excited about this week’s episode. To the point, I really considered not covering this topic-which I am aware sounds like a horrible oxymoron, or a clickbait title. But, truthfully, this is a topic that I enjoy so much-that I was a bit worried about letting my personal bias leak in. But, once I saw enough requests, and that the grasshopper script spit out Turkey as next on my list, well, I just had to talk about Göbekli Tepe.
https://www.dainst.blog/the-tepe-telegrams/photos/
Now, today’s episode is going to change the format of our show completely on its head. Normally, I start off by discussing and summarizing the history of the people and the culture that lead to the site. However, since that is very much part of the mystery of the site, we are going to just dive straight into the site itself and add all of the extra information as we go. As always, a quick disclaimer that you should always check your sources, check your facts, and more importantly check me. And in this episode, this is going to be doubly true. Some of the theories of the site are supported in academia, but NOT supported by the Institute in charge of the site, some are just completely out there, and some are weird theories and questions I have. And don’t worry, I will totally disclaimer which theory is which, and not throw out any of my ideas and questions until later on-I will make sure to make it as clear as possible which is which.
https://www.dainst.blog/the-tepe-telegrams/photos/
If you took any form of world history, you may not have heard about this site at all. To be totally honest, this is something I stumbled across when doing independent research years ago, and again later when listening to another podcast. But, when you are studying human history, they normally teach you how originally humans were hunter-gatherers. Which did exactly like the name suggested, and hunted and gathered their food. It a very transparent description of what went down. BUT, what you almost certainty were also taught was that, they then AFTER THAT domesticated animals and foods. Now yes, plant species can be domesticated. We do it now all the time-what I mean is that people, humans, begin to select crops and deliberately raise them to be eaten, or hybridized the plants. The most famous example is Gregor Mendel’s pea plants in recent times, where he deliberately removed parts of one plant to pollinate another. Depending on the species of plant, depends on how hard that is, in the case of pea plants, they normally self-pollinate, so it’s pretty easy to crack open the buds-in the case of other plants, think of wild flowers now. They often are open to world, not self-contained, so it takes a lot time, normally several seasons depending on the plant to see results. And this is complicated even further if a trait is dominant or recessive. And adding breeding animals to that? Naturally the conclusion to all of that and what was originally taught was that once humans switched to this, they started to build permanent structures, and eventually created writing, pottery, and art. Because, when a task takes that much time, it is no longer feasible to chase food across the country. Domestication allowed a bigger yield of food and more constant. The first form of writing was I believed, based on either labors wages or agriculture. I really can’t remember which. But I do know it is currently credited to be from Mesopotamia and was called Cuneiform/Sumerian. But to be totally honest, even that is currently up for debate among some scholars, on whether or not the written language was a concept that popped up multiple times independently of each other. But no matter how interesting a topic, that’s not today’s focus.
No, what’s today’s focus is, is the previous path of development. Hunt/gather leads to agriculture leads to farming and architecture. Göbekli Tepe is where history once again proves my favorite concept true, no matter how much you think you know, there is always more to learn. In 1960-4-ish, two Universities, Chicago and Istanbul studied Göbekli Tepe as part of a greater research and discovered a few odds and ends that made them think that there was a possible Cemetery, or Outpost on the hill in the Anatolia region of Turkey, maybe Byzantian one source said? In modern day Turkey, this is close to the Syria Boarder. Still extremely interesting, and it gathered enough interest to warrant a 399 page report, that you can find the links to on the blog, but basically, swept up in the general interest and importance in the region and just labeled as an archaeological site of interest. To be totally fair to the original universities, they did the best they could in the time and money allowed, with the latest information and tools available. But, within the report, and gosh it feels absolutely rude to call what they found as “bits and bobs”, they summed it up in a single paragraph, that happened to catch the eye of a gentleman named, Klaus Schmidt. He went back in 1993, and eventually convinced the German Archaeological Institute (DAI) to help him, and they ended up discovering and excavating the mound, and quickly realizing that the hill, which name Göbekli Tepe, translated to ‘Potbelly Man’ because of the way it looked, was actually a completely artificial mound-hiding a series of buried structures, that we now know of as Göbekli Tepe.
So, if I ever claim a site is ‘lost’ or ‘abandoned’, this is my new standard. Was it buried in the ground and actually abandoned? Even one of the videos I was watching mentioned that same idea. Last week’s episode is a good example of ‘abandoned’. Sometimes I forget you can’t see my air quotes I am making. If you are one of my recurring listeners, you know that I have a problem with people classifying things as abandoned or speaking in absolutes especially when locals still live there, but this is the one time that I have no argument.
At the time, it was the oldest built archaeological/architectural site. The Institute has since partnered with several firms and universities, and released multiple interviews and shows about it, some news and publications companies- a bit more unorthodox then others and perhaps not with their permission, meaning that some of the material you find online is actually NOT approved by them. So, when researching further, make sure to double check where you are getting your information. I say this every episode, but feel free to check it all on my blog.
But the question for both the Institute and Schmidt, was what exactly did they find and how abandoned was it? Like, are we talking great pyramids, or 90s grunge?
The answer? Rough estimates believe that the oldest parts can be traced back to the 10th and 9th millennium BC-we are talking about 11,000-10,000s of years ago, with some sources as placing it slightly earlier-that means in the context of the hunter-gatherers, this would have been Pre-Pottery Neolithic, which means that our original and earliest understandings of the hunter-gatherer-agricultural discussion I was having earlier? Yeah, you basically can throw that out. To throw some context, the last of the Mammoths died out 4,000 years ago on Wrangel Island. Meaning that they were Mammoths, and Ice, and Snow. You literally cannot compare it to anything else we have talked about. Not the pyramids or any other structures that I was able to find. I mean, Mammoths and Wooly Mammoths-Image that. Now, since it’s discovery, several other remains were found within the region, and last year an article in October came out saying that they found an older site, but Göbekli Tepe is the site that started it all and made us realize that we need to redefine our understanding.
Part of what makes this site so amazing, is that, we don’t know. We can find remains of potential food and grain sources that they must have started creating after construction or before, but as far as we were originally aware, we had not seen any large scale settlements or religious congregations to this scale before, and originally didn’t think it was possible. So the magnitude of this find cannot be understated. Much less finding others just like it-the amount of research and information is astronomical. I included several papers, and I honestly haven’t even read all of them yet.
Now, before we get into the theories of what it all meant, and could have meant, let’s walk through the site itself. So, as I said, it’s part of a larger grouping of sites, called Tas Tepeler, and Göbekli Tepe contains some of the oldest known megaliths. If you look at the oldest part of the site, it starts off as circles, with extremely skinny monoliths in the shape of Ts. Now all of the sources commented on them being skinny, but serious, they are super skinny. Looking at photographs, you normally see the photos are taken of the larger ring, which has two Ts, as I will called the megaliths for the rest of the episode, going down the middle, and a series of smaller Ts around the outer rings. And then walls of rocks and rubble between. Looking between the debris, you can really see how the roofs-if they had them- would have gone, probably with a much more lightweight material, crafting spaces in-between and around the supports. Eventually they switched from the circles to the rectangles. And it was suggested that they would have buried the previous or unneeded areas. But, what is most captivating is that each of the Ts and a lot of the surrounding areas are completely covered in carvings. Mostly animals-ones that would have been around during the time, so a few extinct species but some notable. And masks-with human caricatures, and carved human skulls. And we are going to get to that aspect just a little bit later.
But, it seemed that when researching one site would claim something, or some aspect was not uncovered there, and then another article dated three weeks later would claim that they found evidence or the artifact in question because they excavated a new area. So, when speaking in absolutes, the only conclusions I feel safe speaking about are: the figures are male, there were heads discovered that were changed after death, they keep finding more information, and the only time I can remember this becoming popular culture is when the show “the Gift” popped up on Netflix-it’s a Turkish drama, that I have only watched a few episodes of, because, I basically binge during breaks, and I haven’t had time this break-and also, I am only allowed to make so many comments on set design and architecture per movie or episode, before my friends cut me off. Documentaries are fair game though. However, among the locations that the show was filmed at, includes, Göbekli Tepe, Turkey! There was also several other locations, and other sites, and the show does follow the plot of novel. As a warning the show is rate for Mature audiences only, so, for my younger audience, please skip it. But, what this show did was bring this into major conversations, and I noticed that for many of the people I would talk to, they genuinely didn’t realize that this was a real place. Which is incredibly upsetting to think that the research of all of the universities and others were basically being ignored.
In this location alone, there are sculptures with vultures, scorpions, an assorting of animals we only have bones of, faces and totems, an entire history that deserves to be discovered.
But next comes the most important part. What exactly did they use it for? So, the DAI says that in a single line that that it was a place possibly of ritual and cult. Other articles will call it a possible religious temple, or gathering. Which is lead by the idea, that there isn’t a hearth, or water, or anything that suggests a yearlong living arrangement, as well as the various figures. The skulls-the ones I mentioned being altered? There are documented cases of skull worship and cults in the region. I found articles for the skulls all from 2017, one with a person from the DAI saying that they found seven fragments, and could have been used for ancestor worship.
From there it just gets into the weird. One of the oldest arguments I heard, was that this was way to advance for anyone during that time, and the degradation in quality, from the oldest site to the youngest site, in terms of construction is because Aliens assisted and then left. There is several Television shows that discuss the possibility. One series I found was discussed in a Forbes article talking about “What Archaeologists Really Think about…” It’s an older article, but it discusses a series of writings where the archaeologists basically do what I did in the Tartarian episode, they research and summarize the arguments and then analyze and discuss the validity of the sources. I haven’t read them all the way, but some of them that I did, I felt did a great job focusing on the sources and the information without coming across as super condescending. You know, when was the idea introduced, what was the original article from, etc. while others…. Didn’t.
https://www.dainst.blog/the-tepe-telegrams/the-research-project/
But for me, to purpose my radical crazy theories-or maybe just offer an opinion in general. One thing that I felt supported the idea of the skull being important to worship was the way some of the masks were carved-but one thing against it, was that when a carving or work erodes, the finer details are the first to go. So, if there was any additional ornament, it is long gone. The lack of hearths, and the various figures, does lend high importance, but as to whether or not, it was religious, I think a lot more would need to uncovered at this site or another before a definitive stance could be taken about exactly what that religion would look like. Even the heads, or possibly decapitated heads depicted-could have been a deity that was only a head? Could they have believed the soul was in the head, instead of the heart? Could it have been a funeral rite. When animals eyes are seen in the dark, they will often times reflect the light in the pupils, while we know the biology, could have thought it was the soul looking out?
The number of theories around is ridiculous. We could start now and many finish in like three years talking through possibilities. But, the amount of time construction would have taken-could it have been a stop along the way to the other structures? A series of paths of refuge? A temple for the other locations to pilgrimage? A place to pray and rest between hunts?
Without a lot more information, I think we may never know. But I for one, and excited to see what else they can discover. If nothing else is found from this site, the way that information has been treated, the passion of some internet defenders as I saw them refer to themselves, who strongly feel that the site and the DAI, and other institutes have failed to get the recognition they all deserve for their time and energy spent studying and understanding the mysteries of Göbekli Tepe. This site has had a lasting impact on our understanding, and sparked the idea of discovery and the unknown into a newer generation. But more importantly, in a lot of ways, it has allowed the conversation to join academia to popular culture. I, myself, was inspired by it. Wanting to break out my Indiana Jones hat and run off Crocodile Hunter style into the trenches. And to me, changing the conversation, or rather sparking the conversation is the first step.
But once again a big thank you to all my listeners! I know I say this every week, but please: Please rate and review. As a pretty new podcast, with only 14 episodes, excluding the BONUS shows, sharing the show really makes the difference. If you liked it, loved it, hated it, let me know. I love feedback, and hearing from everyone, and more importantly, sparking conversation. We again have a Facebook page and private group, both of which are under the same name: Architecture, Coffee, & Ink, which is again, pretty young. https://architectureink.design.blog/, is the website, Everything will be linked in the show notes. Have a wonderful new year and as always,
May your coffee mugs be full, and your ink wells never run dry.
60 secs end song re-looped.
https://www.dainst.blog/the-tepe-telegrams/the-research-project/
SOURCES:
“10 Incredible Göbekli Tepe Discoveries You May Never Have Heard of | Ancient Architects.” YouTube. YouTube, November 5, 2021. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c6f4gsILSHw.
“The Best Ancient Ruins in Turkey • Passport & Pixels.” Passport & Pixels, November 20, 2021. https://www.passportandpixels.com/best-ancient-ruins-in-turkey/.
Bevan, Robert. “Turkey’s Göbekli Tepe: Is This the World’s First Architecture?” The Art Newspaper – International art news and events. The Art Newspaper – International art news and events, September 28, 2021. https://www.theartnewspaper.com/2018/08/03/turkeys-gobekli-tepe-is-this-the-worlds-first-architecture.
Bower, Bruce. “Carved Human Skulls Found at Ancient Worship Center in Turkey.” Science News, August 8, 2019. https://www.sciencenews.org/article/carved-human-skulls-found-ancient-worship-center-turkey.
Bower, Bruce. “Carved Human Skulls Found at Ancient Worship Center in Turkey.” Science News, August 8, 2019. https://www.sciencenews.org/article/carved-human-skulls-found-ancient-worship-center-turkey.
Centre, UNESCO World Heritage. “Göbekli Tepe.” UNESCO World Heritage Centre. Accessed January 13, 2022. https://whc.unesco.org/en/list/1572.
“Gobekli Tepe.” The Free Dictionary. Farlex. Accessed January 13, 2022. https://encyclopedia2.thefreedictionary.com/Gobekli+Tepe.
“Göbekli Tepe, Turkey.” Global Heritage Fund, May 13, 2021. https://globalheritagefund.org/places/gobekli-tepe-turkey/.
“Göbekli Tepe: The Dawn of Civilization.” YouTube. YouTube, November 19, 2020. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iSG1MsQSo_A.
“Göbekli̇tepe.” Turkish Cultural Foundation. Accessed January 12, 2022. http://www.turkishculture.org/archaeology/gobekli-tepe-1027.htm.
III, Ronnie Jones. “Göbekli Tepe.” World History Encyclopedia. World History Encyclopedia, January 11, 2022. https://www.worldhistory.org/G%C3%B6bekli_Tepe/.
“An Immense Mystery Older than Stonehenge.” BBC Travel. BBC. Accessed January 12, 2022. https://www.bbc.com/travel/article/20210815-an-immense-mystery-older-than-stonehenge.
Killgrove, Kristina. “What Archaeologists Really Think about Ancient Aliens, Lost Colonies, and Fingerprints of the Gods.” Forbes. Forbes Magazine, November 22, 2015. https://www.forbes.com/sites/kristinakillgrove/2015/09/03/what-archaeologists-really-think-about-ancient-aliens-lost-colonies-and-fingerprints-of-the-gods/?sh=598198e17ab0.
Magazine, Smithsonian. “Gobekli Tepe: The World’s First Temple?” Smithsonian.com. Smithsonian Institution, November 1, 2008. https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/gobekli-tepe-the-worlds-first-temple-83613665/.
“Modified Human Crania from Göbekli Tepe … – Researchgate.” Accessed January 13, 2022. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/318071703_Modified_human_crania_from_Gobekli_Tepe_provide_evidence_for_a_new_form_of_Neolithic_skull_cult.
Oliver, Mark. “Built 6,000 Years before Stonehenge, This Is the Oldest Temple on Earth.” All That’s Interesting. All That’s Interesting, November 28, 2021. https://allthatsinteresting.com/gobekli-tepe.
“The Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago.” Accessed January 13, 2022. https://oi.uchicago.edu/sites/oi.uchicago.edu/files/uploads/shared/docs/oip3.pdf.
“Photos.” Tepe Telegrams. Accessed January 12, 2022. https://www.dainst.blog/the-tepe-telegrams/photos/.
“The Site.” Tepe Telegrams. Accessed January 12, 2022. https://www.dainst.blog/the-tepe-telegrams/the-research-project/.
Yalav-Heckeroth, Feride. “Ancient Sites and Cities You Should Visit in Turkey.” Culture Trip. The Culture Trip, March 27, 2018. https://theculturetrip.com/europe/turkey/articles/9-ancient-sites-and-cities-you-should-visit-in-turkey/.
Yalav-Heckeroth, Feride. “The Most Important Archaeological Sites in Turkey.” Culture Trip. The Culture Trip, September 16, 2017. https://theculturetrip.com/europe/turkey/articles/the-most-important-archaeological-sites-in-turkey/.
ACADEMIC PAPERS SOURCES FOR FUTHER READING:
Moritz Nykamp, Daniel Knitter, Brigitta Schütt,
Late Holocene geomorphodynamics in the vicinity of Göbekli Tepe, SE Turkey, CATENA, Volume 195, 2020, 104759, ISSN 0341-8162, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.catena.2020.104759.
(https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S034181622030309X)
Nykamp, Moritz, Fabian Becker, Ricarda Braun, Nadja Pöllath, Daniel Knitter, Joris Peters, and Brigitta Schütt. “Sediment Cascades and the Entangled Relationship between Human Impact and Natural Dynamics at the Pre‐Pottery Neolithic Site of Göbekli Tepe, Anatolia.” Wiley Online Library. John Wiley & Sons, Ltd, December 5, 2020. https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/esp.5035.
Article Source: Cereal processing at Early Neolithic Göbekli Tepe, southeastern Turkey
Dietrich L, Meister J, Dietrich O, Notroff J, Kiep J, et al. (2019) Cereal processing at Early Neolithic Göbekli Tepe, southeastern Turkey. PLOS ONE 14(5): e0215214. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0215214
From <https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article/citation?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0215214>
Haklay, G., & Gopher, A. (2020). Geometry and Architectural Planning at Göbekli Tepe, Turkey. Cambridge Archaeological Journal, 30(2), 343-357. doi:10.1017/S0959774319000660
1. Henley TB. Introducing Göbekli Tepe to Psychology. Review of General Psychology. 2018;22(4):477-484. doi:10.1037/gpr0000151
Banning, E. B. “So Fair a House: Göbekli Tepe and the Identification of Temples in the Pre-Pottery Neolithic of the Near East.” Current Anthropology 52, no. 5 (2011): 619–60. https://doi.org/10.1086/661207.
Dietrich, O., Heun, M., Notroff, J., Schmidt, K., & Zarnkow, M. (2012). The role of cult and feasting in the emergence of Neolithic communities. New evidence from Göbekli Tepe, south-eastern Turkey. Antiquity, 86(333), 674-695. doi:10.1017/S0003598X00047840
