Before discovery of Göbekli Tepe, Stonehenge was believed to be the oldest man made place of worship. But Göbekli Tepe is 12,000 years old, which makes it not just the oldest man made place of worship but also the oldest man made buildings, even older than Egypt Pyramids.

Göbekli Tepe is located in the south east of Turkey and it is discovered by Klaus Schmidt in 1995. Actually  discovery of this unique place has an interesting story. First findings of Göbekli Tepe is belongs to a local farmer, who found 2 monuments. This gentle local farmer decide to give this monuments to the Museum Ministry of Turkey.

At first the Ministry of Museum don’t realize the importance of these monuments and rejects to preserve these historical pieces. But eventually they decide to keep them when they found out this local farmer will throw them away. When Klaus Schmidt see this monuments while doing an excavation in Turkey, he decide to investigate the area further where that monuments were found.

The most interesting thing about Göbekli Tepe is it’s T-Shaped stone pillars, which are believed to be part of a social or religious ritual. This giant “T-Shaped” monuments circled with other small “T-shaped” stone pillars. Historians believe that this particular shape represents human body. Göbekli Tepe also has many historical reliefs and animal sculptures.

Another important finding is this particular relief. This old relief depicts a scene of birth and this is the only woman figure that is found in Göbekli Tepe. Strange thing about this relief is it shows that baby’s feet coming first, yet it should be baby’s head coming first in a normal birth.

Göbekli Tepe is not just one simple site, it consists of multiple sites. This sites distributed and still being excavated. Also more sites are being discovered and probably there is still undiscovered sites. Here is a map that displaces the distribution of sites, from 2006.

Many animal sculptures found in Göbekli Tepe. Klaus Schmidt believes that these animal sculptures made for religious reasons. This carved animals were made to protect the dead. It shows that this hunter-gatherer society had show respect to dead and preserved them.

This particular discovery is important because it changed the understanding of a crucial stage in the development of human society. Ian Hodder of Stanford University said, "Göbekli Tepe changes everything". It is said that this site was built by hunter-gatherers, which means this groups were be able to build huge monuments and obviously they had a religion.

Click here and visit Göbekli Tepe online! Thanks to the internet, you can visit Göbekli Tepe right now. Have fun!

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