100-610: Göbekli Tepe ( Turkish: [ɟœbecˈli teˈpe] , ' Potbelly Hill ' ; Kurdish : Girê Mirazan or Xerabreşkê , 'Wish Hill') is a Neolithic archaeological site in the Southeastern Anatolia Region of Turkey. The settlement was inhabited from around 9500 BCE to at least 8000 BCE , during the Pre-Pottery Neolithic . It is famous for its large circular structures that contain massive stone pillars – among
200-411: A PPNA site. Schmidt's team explained the discrepancy in light of their theory that this material was brought to the site from elsewhere when it was abandoned, and so was not representative of the actual use of the structures. They instead turned to a novel method of dating organic material preserved in the plaster on the structure's walls, which resulted in dates more consistent with a PPNA occupation, in
300-483: A dialect of Southern Kurdish or as a fourth language under Kurdish is a matter of debate, but the differences between Laki and other Southern Kurdish dialects are minimal. The literary output in Kurdish was mostly confined to poetry until the early 20th century, when more general literature became developed. Today, the two principal written Kurdish dialects are Kurmanji and Sorani. Sorani is, along with Arabic , one of
400-534: A fully articulated belief in deities as not developing until later, in Mesopotamia , that was associated with extensive temples and palaces. This corresponds well with an ancient Sumerian belief that agriculture, animal husbandry , and weaving were brought to humans from the sacred mountain Ekur , which was inhabited by Annuna deities, very ancient deities without individual names. Schmidt identified this story as
500-466: A narrow promontory. In all other directions, the ridge descends steeply into slopes and steep cliffs. The climate of the area was warmer and wetter when Göbekli Tepe was occupied than it is today. The site was surrounded by an open steppe grassland, with abundant wild cereals, including einkorn , wheat, and barley , and herds of grazing animals such as wild sheep , wild goat , gazelle , and equids . Large herds of goitered gazelle may have passed by
600-463: A number of smaller carved stones, which typically cannot be attributed to one period or another. The iconography of these objects is similar to that of the pillars, mostly depicting animals, but also humans, again primarily male. A "totem pole" was discovered in one of the structures, dating to the early PPNB. Reassembled, it is 192 centimetres (6.30 ft) tall and 30 centimetres (0.98 ft) in diameter. It depicts three figures (from top to bottom):
700-435: A predator (a bear or large felid) with a missing head, and the neck and arms of a human; another figure missing a head with human arms, likely male; and a third figure with a head that had survived intact. Snakes are carved on either side. Klaus Schmidt's view was that Göbekli Tepe was a stone-age mountain sanctuary. He suggested it was a central location for a cult of the dead and that the carved animals are there to protect
800-542: A primeval oriental myth that preserves a partial memory of the emerging Neolithic. It is apparent that the animal and other images give no indication of organized violence, i.e. there are no depictions of hunting raids or wounded animals, and the pillar carvings generally ignore game on which the society depended, such as deer, in favour of formidable creatures such as lions, snakes, spiders, and scorpions. Expanding on Schmidt's interpretation that round enclosures could represent sanctuaries, Gheorghiu's semiotic interpretation reads
900-537: A rich archaeological heritage of eneolithic (4900–3800 BCE ) tells from the 5th millennium BCE. In Neolithic Greece there is a contrast between the northern Thessalian plain, where rainfall was sufficient to permit densely populated settlements based on dry-farming , and the more dispersed sites in southern Greece, such as the Peloponesus , where early villages sprang up around the smaller arable tracts close to springs, lakes, and marshes. Two models account for
1000-558: A small relief depicting a bovid was found. It is the only relief found in this cave. Göbekli Tepe was built and occupied during the earliest part of the Southwest Asian Neolithic , known as the Pre-Pottery Neolithic (PPN, c. 9600 –7000 BCE ). Beginning at the end of the last Ice Age , the PPN marks "the beginnings of village life", producing the earliest evidence for permanent human settlements in
1100-435: A small building adjacent to enclosure D, yielded almost 700 tools. Most common were retouched artifacts, followed by scrapers, perforators and artifacts with gloss . Heavy duty tools, burins and microliths were also present. Over 7000 grinding stones have been found, spanning the entirety of the sites usage, which are suggested to have been used to process cereal based on phytoliths found in associated soil, though it
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#17327717777641200-510: A variety that was an important literary language since the 14th century, but it was replaced by Central Kurdish in the 20th century. European scholars have maintained that Gorani is separate from Kurdish and that Kurdish is synonymous with the Northern Kurdish group, whereas ethnic Kurds maintain that Kurdish encompasses any of the unique languages or dialects spoken by Kurds that are not spoken by neighbouring ethnic groups. Gorani
1300-504: A wide area, with few or no permanent inhabitants. The site was first used at the dawn of the Southwest Asian Neolithic period , which marked the appearance of the oldest permanent human settlements anywhere in the world. Prehistorians link this Neolithic Revolution to the advent of agriculture, but disagree on whether farming caused people to settle down or vice versa. Göbekli Tepe, a monumental complex built on
1400-610: Is an artificial topographical feature, a mound consisting of the accumulated and stratified debris of a succession of consecutive settlements at the same site, the refuse of generations of people who built and inhabited them and natural sediment. Tells are most commonly associated with the ancient Near East but are also found elsewhere, such as in Southern and parts of Central Europe , from Greece and Bulgaria to Hungary and Spain , and in North Africa . Within
1500-610: Is an official language in Iraq. In Syria, on the other hand, publishing materials in Kurdish is forbidden, though this prohibition is not enforced any more due to the Syrian civil war . Before August 2002, the Turkish government placed severe restrictions on the use of Kurdish, prohibiting the language in education and broadcast media. In March 2006, Turkey allowed private television channels to begin airing programming in Kurdish. However,
1600-622: Is classified as part of the Zaza–Gorani branch of Indo-Iranian languages. The Zaza language , spoken mainly in Turkey, differs both grammatically and in vocabulary and is generally not understandable by Gorani speakers but it is considered related to Gorani. Almost all Zaza-speaking communities, as well as speakers of the closely related Shabaki dialect spoken in parts of Iraqi Kurdistan , identify themselves as ethnic Kurds. Geoffrey Haig and Ergin Öpengin in their recent study suggest grouping
1700-471: Is known about other large Pre-Pottery Neolithic sites, where ritual and profane functions coexist." For example, the discovery of domestic buildings and rainwater harvesting systems has forced a revision of the 'temple' narrative. Before being documented by archaeologists, the hill Göbekli Tepe stands on, known locally in Kurdish as Girê Mirazan or Xerabreşkê ( Girê Mirazan meaning 'Wish Hill'),
1800-458: Is not a unified language, its many dialects are interrelated and at the same time distinguishable from other Western Iranian languages . The same source classifies different Kurdish dialects as two main groups, northern and central. The average Kurmanji speaker does not find it easy to communicate with the inhabitants of Sulaymaniyah or Halabja . Some linguistic scholars assert that the term "Kurdish" has been applied extrinsically in describing
1900-403: Is not known why every few decades the existing pillars were buried to be replaced by new stones as part of a smaller, concentric ring inside the older one. According to Rémi Hadad, in recent years "the interpretative enthusiasm that sought to see Göbekli Tepe as a regional ceremonial centre where nomadic populations would periodically converge is giving way to a vision that is more in line with what
2000-459: Is not recognized in Turkey, and prior to 2013 the use of Kurdish names containing the letters X , W , and Q , which do not exist in the Turkish alphabet , was not allowed. In 2012, Kurdish-language lessons became an elective subject in public schools. Previously, Kurdish education had only been possible in private institutions. In Iran, though it is used in some local media and newspapers, it
2100-440: Is not unique to the site, with over a half-dozen other similar sites like Karahan Tepe having been found across modern Şanlıurfa Province , dating to approximately the same time period. The site was first noted in a survey in 1963. Schmidt recognized its significance in 1994 and began excavations there the following year. After his death in 2014, work continued as a joint project of Istanbul University , Şanlıurfa Museum , and
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#17327717777642200-517: Is not used in public schools. In 2005, 80 Syrian and Iranian Kurds took part in an experiment and gained scholarships to study in Kurdistan Region , Iraq, in their native tongue. In Kyrgyzstan , 96.21% of the Kurdish population speak Kurdish as their native language. In Kazakhstan, the corresponding percentage is 88.7%. Tell (archaeology) In archaeology , a tell (from Arabic : تَلّ , tall , 'mound' or 'small hill')
2300-567: Is preserved. Presumably, this is the remains of a Roman watchtower that was part of the Limes Arabicus , though this is conjecture. Most structures on the plateau seem to be the result of Neolithic quarrying, with the quarries being used as sources for the huge, monolithic architectural elements. Their profiles were pecked into the rock, with the detached blocks then levered out of the rock bank. Several quarries where round workpieces had been produced were identified. Their status as quarries
2400-465: Is similar to Sumerian DUL , which can also refer to a pile of any material, such as grain, but it is not known whether the similarity reflects a borrowing from that language or if the Sumerian term itself was a loanword from an earlier Semitic substrate language . If Akkadian tīlu is related to another word in that language, til'u , meaning "woman's breast", there exists a similar term in
2500-456: Is situated on has been shaped by erosion and quarrying from the Neolithic onwards. There are four 10-metre-long (33 ft) and 20-centimetre-wide (7.9 in) channels on the southern part of the plateau, interpreted as the remains of an ancient quarry from which rectangular blocks were taken. These are possibly related to a square building in the neighbourhood, of which only the foundation
2600-538: Is the head. This is confirmed by the fact that some pillars include – in addition to animal reliefs – carvings of arms, hands, and loincloths . The two central pillars occupied a special place in the symbolic architecture of the enclosures. Those in Enclosure ;D represent humans, with arms, a belt, and a piece of cloth that hides the genitals. The sex of the individuals depicted cannot be clearly identified, though Schmidt suggested that they are two men because
2700-458: Is the presence of T-shaped limestone pillars evenly set within thick interior walls composed of unworked stone. Four such circular structures have been unearthed so far. Geophysical surveys indicate that there are 16 more, enclosing up to eight pillars each, amounting to nearly 200 pillars in all. The slabs were transported from bedrock pits located approximately 100 m (330 ft) from the hilltop, with workers using flint points to cut through
2800-475: Is thought by Schmidt to symbolize shoulders, which suggests that the figures were left headless. Whether they were intended to serve as surrogate worshippers, symbolize venerated ancestors, or represent supernatural, anthropomorphic beings is not known. Some of the floors in this, the oldest, layer are made of terrazzo (burnt lime); others are bedrock from which pedestals to hold the large pair of central pillars were carved in high relief. Radiocarbon dating places
2900-522: Is thought that the earliest examples of tells are in the Jordan Valley , such as at the 10-meter-high mound, dating back to the proto-Neolithic period , at Jericho in the West Bank . More than 5,000 tells have been detected in the area of ancient Israel and Jordan. Of these, Paul Lapp calculated in the 1960s that 98% had yet to be touched by archaeologists. In Syria, tells are abundant in
3000-461: Is translated to simply mean Kurdish. The Mokriani variety of Sorani is widely spoken in Mokrian. Piranshahr and Mahabad are two principal cities of the Mokrian area. Zaza–Gorani languages , which are spoken by communities in the wider area who identify as ethnic Kurds, are not linguistically classified as Kurdish. Zaza-Gorani is classified as adjunct to Kurdish, although authorities differ in
3100-485: Is unclear whether the cereal was wild or cultivated. The stone pillars in the enclosures at Göbekli Tepe are T-shaped, similar to other Pre-Pottery Neolithic sites in the region. Unlike at these other sites, however, many of the pillars are carved – typically in low relief , though sometimes in high relief. Most carvings depict animals, mostly serpents, foxes, and boars, but also gazelle, mouflon (wild sheep), onager , ducks, and vultures. Insofar as they can be identified,
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3200-543: Is unique to the Urfa region, but is found at the majority of PPN sites there. These include Nevalı Çori, Hamzan Tepe , Karahan Tepe , Harbetsuvan Tepesi , Sefer Tepe , and Taslı Tepe . Other stone stelae —without the characteristic T shape—have been documented at contemporary sites further afield, including Çayönü, Qermez Dere , and Gusir Höyük . Radiocarbon dating shows that the earliest exposed structures at Göbekli Tepe were built between 9500 and 9000 BCE , towards
3300-498: The German Archaeological Institute , under the direction of Turkish prehistorian Necmi Karul . Göbekli Tepe was designated a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 2018, recognising its outstanding universal value as "one of the first manifestations of human-made monumental architecture". As of 2015, less than 5% of the site had been excavated. Additional areas were examined by geophysical surveys , which showed
3400-684: The Upper Mesopotamia region, scattered along the Euphrates , including Tell al-'Abr , Tell Bazi , Tell Kabir, Tell Mresh, Tell Saghir and Tell Banat . The last is thought to be the site of the oldest war memorial (known as the White Monument ), dating from the 3rd millennium BCE. Tells can be found in Europe in countries such as Spain, Hungary, Romania , Bulgaria, North Macedonia , and Greece . Northeastern Bulgaria has
3500-402: The terrazzo floors of the younger complexes at Göbekli Tepe. Immediately northwest of this area are two cistern-like pits that are believed to be part of complex E. One of these pits has a table-high pin as well as a staircase with five steps. The uppermost layer of the tell is the shallowest but accounts for the longest stretch of time. It consists of loose sediments caused by erosion and
3600-587: The Göbekli Tepe iconography as a cosmogonic map that would have related the local community to the surrounding landscape and the cosmos. The assumption that the site was strictly cultic in purpose and not inhabited has been challenged as well by the suggestion that the structures served as large communal houses, "similar in some ways to the large plank houses of the Northwest Coast of North America with their impressive house posts and totem poles ." It
3700-537: The Kurdish languages into Northern Kurdish, Central Kurdish, Southern Kurdish, Zaza , and Gorani, and avoid the subgrouping Zaza–Gorani. The notable professor Zare Yusupova has carried out a lot of work and research into the Gorani dialect (as well as many other minority/ancient Kurdish dialects). During his stay in Damascus , historian Ibn Wahshiyya came across two books on agriculture written in Kurdish, one on
3800-484: The Kurds of Amadiya . This work is very important in Kurdish history as it is the first acknowledgment of the widespread use of a distinctive Kurdish language. Garzoni was given the title Father of Kurdology by later scholars. The Kurdish language was banned in a large portion of Kurdistan for some time. After the 1980 Turkish coup d'état until 1991 the use of the Kurdish language was illegal in Turkey. Today, Sorani
3900-747: The Kurds speak Kurmanji, and most Kurdish texts are written in Kurmanji and Sorani. Kurmanji is written in the Hawar alphabet , a derivation of the Latin script , and Sorani is written in the Sorani alphabet , a derivation of the Arabic script . A separate group of non-Kurdish Northwestern Iranian languages, the Zaza–Gorani languages , are also spoken by several million ethnic Kurds. The classification of Laki as
4000-783: The Near East continue to be occupied and used today. The word tell is first attested in English in an 1840 report in the Journal of the Royal Geographical Society . It is derived from the Arabic تَلّ ( tall ) meaning "mound" or "hillock". Variant spellings include tall , tel , til and tal . The Arabic word has many cognates in other Semitic languages , such as Akkadian tīlu(m) , Ugaritic tl and Hebrew tel ( תל ). The Akkadian form
4100-884: The Near East they are concentrated in less arid regions, including Upper Mesopotamia , the Southern Levant , Anatolia and Iran , which had more continuous settlement. Eurasian tells date to the Neolithic , the Chalcolithic and the Bronze and Iron Ages. In the Southern Levant the time of the tells ended with the conquest by Alexander the Great , which ushered in the Hellenistic period with its own, different settlement-building patterns. Many tells across
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4200-497: The Neolithic in places, and the transition to agriculture took thousands of years, with different paces and trajectories in different regions. Archaeologists divide the Pre-Pottery Neolithic into two subperiods: the Pre-Pottery Neolithic A (PPNA, c. 9600 –8800 BCE ) and the Pre-Pottery Neolithic B (PPNB, c. 8800 and 7000 BCE ). The earliest phases at Göbekli Tepe have been dated to
4300-407: The Neolithic, as well as some traces of activity from later periods. Current excavators interpret Göbekli Tepe as a settlement, based on recent findings such as domestic structures and features, water supply installations, and Neolithic tools associated with domestic use. The site's original excavator Klaus Schmidt had described it as a sanctuary used by groups of nomadic hunter-gatherers from
4400-400: The PPN based on the types of stone tools found there, considering a PPNA date "most probable". Establishing its absolute chronology took longer due to methodological challenges. Though the first two radiocarbon dates were published in 1998, these and other samples from the fill of the structure dated to the late 10th and early 9th millennium – 500 to 1000 years later than expected for
4500-721: The PPNA; later phases to the PPNB. Evidence indicates the inhabitants of Göbekli Tepe were hunter-gatherers who supplemented their diet with early forms of domesticated cereal and lived in villages for at least part of the year. Tools such as grinding stones and mortars and pestles found at the site have been analyzed and suggest considerable cereal processing. Archaeozoological evidence hints at "large-scale hunting of gazelle between midsummer and autumn." PPN villages consisted mainly of clusters of stone or mud brick houses, but sometimes also substantial monuments and large buildings. These include
4600-840: The South Semitic classical Ethiopian language of Geʽez , namely təla , "breast". Hebrew tel first appears in the biblical book of Deuteronomy 13:16 (c. 700–500 BCE), describing a heap or small mound and appearing in the books of Joshua and Jeremiah with the same meaning. There are lexically unrelated equivalents for this geophysical concept of a town-mound in other Southwest Asian languages, including kom in Egyptian Arabic , tepe or tappeh ( Turkish / Persian : تپه ), hüyük or höyük (Turkish) and chogha (Persian: چغا , from Turkish çokmak and derivatives çoka etc.). Equivalent words for town-mound often appear in place names, and
4700-428: The Turkish government said that they must avoid showing children's cartoons , or educational programs that teach Kurdish, and could broadcast only for 45 minutes a day or four hours a week. The state-run Turkish Radio and Television Corporation (TRT) started its 24-hour Kurdish television station on 1 January 2009 with the motto "we live under the same sky". The Turkish prime minister sent a video message in Kurdish to
4800-405: The animals are male, and often depicted with an aggressive posture. Abstract shapes are also depicted, mostly an upright or horizontal H-shaped symbol, but also crescents and disks. Depictions of humans are rare; pillar 43 in enclosure D includes a headless man with an erect phallus . However, the 'T'-shape of the pillars themselves is anthropomorphic : the shaft is the body, and the top
4900-453: The approximate borders of the areas where the main ethnic core of the speakers of the contemporary Kurdish dialects was formed. The most argued hypothesis on the localisation of the ethnic territory of the Kurds remains D.N. Mackenzie 's theory, proposed in the early 1960s (Mackenzie 1961). Developing the ideas of P. Tedesco (1921: 255) and regarding the common phonetic isoglosses shared by Kurdish, Persian, and Baluchi , Mackenzie concluded that
5000-538: The belts they wear are a male attribute in the period. There is only one certain representation of a woman, depicted naked on a slab. Schmidt and zooarchaeologist Joris Peters have argued that the variety of fauna depicted on the pillars means they likely do not express a single iconography. They suggest that, since many of the animals pictured are predators, the stones may have been intended to stave off evils through some form of magic representation, or served as totems . The structures at Göbekli Tepe have also yielded
5100-435: The builders good access to raw material: the soft limestone bedrock from which the complex was built, and the flint to make the tools to work the limestone. The prehistoric village acquired drinking water through a rainwater harvesting system, consisting of carved channels that fed several cisterns carved into the bedrock under the site, which could hold at least 150 cubic metres (5,300 cu ft) of water. Additionally,
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#17327717777645200-405: The capability of a single extended family or village community in the Neolithic. They also match the number of people that could have comfortably been inside one of the buildings at the same time. Enclosures B, C and D were initially planned as a single, hierarchical complex that forms an equilateral triangle , according to Haklay and Gopher. Göbekli Tepe is littered with flint artifacts, from
5300-455: The construction of these early circles c. 9000 BCE . Later enclosures were rectangular in shape, perhaps to make more efficient use of space compared with circular structures. They often are associated with the emergence of the Neolithic, but the T-shaped pillars, the main feature of the older enclosures, also are present here, indicating that the buildings continued to serve
5400-520: The culture of the vine and the palm tree, and the other on water and the means of finding it out in unknown ground. He translated both from Kurdish into Arabic in the early 9th century AD. Among the earliest Kurdish religious texts is the Yazidi Black Book , the sacred book of Yazidi faith. It is considered to have been authored sometime in the 13th century AD by Hassan bin Adi (b. 1195 AD),
5500-414: The dead. Butchered bones found in large numbers from the local game such as deer, gazelle, pigs, and geese have been identified as refuse from food hunted and cooked or otherwise prepared for the congregants. Zooarchaeological analysis shows that gazelle were only seasonally present in the region, suggesting that events such as rituals and feasts were likely timed to occur during periods when game availability
5600-553: The details. groups Kurdish with Zaza Gorani within a "Northwestern I" group, while Glottolog based on Encyclopædia Iranica prefers an areal grouping of "Central dialects" (or "Kermanic") within Northwest Iranic, with Kurdish but not Zaza-Gorani grouped with "Kermanic". Gorani is distinct from Northern and Central Kurdish, yet shares vocabulary with both of them and there are some grammatical similarities with Central Kurdish. The Hawrami dialects of Gorani includes
5700-591: The enclosure, which led to repairs and stabilization works to be conducted. At a later point, in Building Phase 5, terrace walls were erected, likely to prevent future damage from such events. These measures, however, proved futile, when a second major slope slide probably caused the enclosure to the abandoned during Building Phase 6, around the late 9th millennium BCE. Other enclosure suffered a similar fate, which might have led to new enclosures being constructed to replace them. Previously, it had been assumed that
5800-410: The end of the Pre-Pottery Neolithic A (PPNA) period. The site was significantly expanded in the early 9th millennium BCE and remained in use until around 8000 BCE , or perhaps slightly later (the early Pre-Pottery Neolithic B , PPNB). There is evidence that smaller groups returned to live amongst the ruins after the Neolithic structures were abandoned. Schmidt originally dated the site to
5900-564: The fact that this usage reflects the sense of ethnic identity and unity among the Kurds. From a linguistic or at least a grammatical point of view, however, Kurmanji and Sorani differ as much from each other as English and German, and it would seem appropriate to refer to them as languages. For example, Sorani has neither gender nor case-endings, whereas Kurmanji has both.... Differences in vocabulary and pronunciation are not as great as between German and English, but they are still considerable. According to Encyclopaedia of Islam , although Kurdish
6000-493: The fifteenth century. From the 15th to 17th centuries, classical Kurdish poets and writers developed a literary language. The most notable classical Kurdish poets from this period were Ali Hariri , Ahmad Khani , Malaye Jaziri and Faqi Tayran . The Italian priest Maurizio Garzoni published the first Kurdish grammar titled Grammatica e Vocabolario della Lingua Kurda in Rome in 1787 after eighteen years of missionary work among
6100-447: The following year and soon unearthed the first of the huge T-shaped pillars. Ultimately he found only three tombs on the eastmost hill-group, which were a pilgrimage destination. Yıldız went on to work on the excavations and serve as the site's guard. Kurdish languages Ancient Medieval Modern Kurdish ( Kurdî , کوردی ) is a Northwestern Iranian language or group of languages spoken by Kurds in
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#17327717777646200-524: The great-grandnephew of Sheikh Adi ibn Musafir (d. 1162), the founder of the faith. It contains the Yazidi account of the creation of the world, the origin of man, the story of Adam and Eve and the major prohibitions of the faith. According to The Cambridge History of the Kurds , "the first proper 'text'" written in Kurdish is a short Christian prayer. It was written in Armenian characters, and dates from
6300-405: The iconography of Çatalhöyük and Jericho . Few humanoid figures have appeared in the art at Göbekli Tepe. Some of the T-shaped pillars have human arms carved on their lower half, however, suggesting to site excavator Schmidt that they are intended to represent the bodies of stylized humans (or perhaps deities). Loincloths appear on the lower half of a few pillars. The horizontal stone slab on top
6400-490: The language the Kurds speak, whereas some ethnic Kurds have used the word term to simply describe their ethnicity and refer to their language as Kurmanji , Sorani , Hewrami , Kermanshahi , Kalhori or whatever other dialect or language they speak. Some historians have noted that it is only recently that the Kurds who speak the Sorani dialect have begun referring to their language as Kurdî , in addition to their identity, which
6500-550: The large enclosures were intentionally back-filled, an interpretation that has fallen out of favor since Klaus Schmidt's death. In the earliest occupation phase, round-oval domestic structures were built alongside the large enclosures, which indicate a (semi) sedentary lifestyle. Over time there was an increasing tendency of these buildings to have a rectangular floor plan. In the final settlement phase only small structures were erected. Before any burials were found, Schmidt speculated that graves could have been located in niches behind
6600-726: The limestone bedrock. The pillars are the oldest known megaliths in the world. Two taller pillars stand facing one another at the centre of each circle. Whether the circles were provided with a roof is uncertain. Stone benches designed for sitting are found in the interior. Many of the pillars are decorated with abstract , enigmatic pictograms and carved animal reliefs. The pictograms may represent commonly understood sacred symbols, as known from Neolithic cave paintings elsewhere. The reliefs depict mammals such as lions, bulls, boars, foxes, gazelle, and donkeys; snakes and other reptiles; arthropods such as insects and arachnids; and birds, particularly vultures. Vultures also feature prominently in
6700-432: The limited geographical area they occur in. Tells are formed from a variety of remains, including organic and cultural refuse, collapsed mudbricks and other building materials, water-laid sediments, residues of biogenic and geochemical processes and aeolian sediment . A classic tell looks like a low, truncated cone with sloping sides and a flat, mesa -like top. They can be more than 43 m (141 ft) high. It
6800-415: The local water table may have been higher, activating springs closer to the site which are dormant today. Excavations have taken place at the southern slope of the tell, south, and west of a mulberry that marks an Islamic pilgrimage , but archaeological finds come from the entire plateau. The team has also found many remains of tools. At the western escarpment , a small cave has been discovered in which
6900-420: The middle or even early 10th millennium BCE . Subsequent research led to a significant revision of Schmidt's chronology, including the abandonment of the hypothesis that the fill of the structures was brought from elsewhere, and a recognition that direct dates on plaster are affected by the old wood effect . Together with new radiocarbon dates, this has established the site's absolute chronology as falling in
7000-469: The modern surface. The revised chronology consists of eight phases that span at least 1,500 years. It details the history of the large circular enclosures, including events that led to their alteration or abandonment, and the evolution of the domestic buildings surrounding them. The first circular compounds appear around the latter half of the 10th millennium BCE . They range from 10 to 30 m (33 to 98 ft) in diameter. Their most notable feature
7100-638: The mound to contain at least 20 large enclosures. Göbekli Tepe is located in the Taş Tepeler ('Stone Hills'), in the foothills of the Taurus Mountains . It overlooks the Harran plain and the headwaters of the Balikh River , a tributary of the Euphrates . The site is a tell (artificial mound) on a flat limestone plateau. In the north, the plateau is connected to the neighbouring mountains by
7200-463: The name "lion pillar building" by which their enclosure is known. The enclosures, lying over 10 metres (33 ft) below the highest areas of the settlement, were subject to several slope slide events during the occupation period of Göbekli Tepe. A particularly severe one occurred at the end of the early PPNB. which inundated enclosure D with rubble of domestic structures and sediments, including burials and midden deposits. This caused severe damage to
7300-581: The north-west Iranian group". Ludwig Paul concludes that Kurdish seems to be a Northwestern Iranian language in origin, but acknowledges that it shares many traits with Southwestern Iranian languages like Persian , apparently due to longstanding and intense historical contacts. Windfuhr identified Kurdish dialects as Parthian , albeit with a Median substratum. Windfuhr and Frye assume an eastern origin for Kurdish and consider it as related to eastern and central Iranian dialects. The present state of knowledge about Kurdish allows, at least roughly, drawing
7400-722: The opening ceremony, which was attended by Minister of Culture and other state officials. The channel uses the X , W , and Q letters during broadcasting. However, most of these restrictions on private Kurdish television channels were relaxed in September 2009. In 2010, Kurdish municipalities in the southeast began printing marriage certificates , water bills, construction and road signs , as well as emergency, social and cultural notices in Kurdish alongside Turkish. Also Imams began to deliver Friday sermons in Kurdish and Esnaf price tags in Kurdish. Many mayors were tried for issuing public documents in Kurdish language. The Kurdish alphabet
7500-545: The other languages spoken by Kurds in the region including the Gorani language in parts of Iranian Kurdistan and Iraqi Kurdistan. Philip G. Kreyenbroek , an expert writing in 1992, says: Since 1932 most Kurds have used the Roman script to write Kurmanji.... Sorani is normally written in an adapted form of the Arabic script.... Reasons for describing Kurmanji and Sorani as 'dialects' of one language are their common origin and
7600-487: The period 9500 to 8000 BCE – the late PPNA and PPNB. The preliminary, now abandoned, stratigraphic model by Klaus Schmidt consisted of three architectural layers. The large circular enclosures were attributed to Layer III, dated to the 10th millennium BCE (PPNA). The smaller rectangular structures and the abandonment of the site were assigned to Layer II in the 9th millennium BCE (early to middle PPNB). Layer I consisted of all post-Neolithic activities up to
7700-506: The pillars alone must have involved hundreds of people. According to these experiments, one moai of similar size to a T-shaped pillar from Göbekli Tepe would have taken 20 people a year to carve, and 50–75 people a week to transport 15 km. Schmidt's team has also cited a 1917 account of the construction of a megalith on the Indonesian island of Nias , which took 525 people three days. These estimates underpin their interpretation that
7800-483: The region of Kurdistan , namely in southeast Turkey , northern Iraq , northwest Iran , and northern Syria . It is also spoken in northeast Iran, as well as in certain areas of Armenia and Azerbaijan . Kurdish varieties constitute a dialect continuum , with some mutually unintelligible varieties, and collectively have 26 million native speakers. The main varieties of Kurdish are Kurmanji , Sorani , and Southern Kurdish ( Xwarîn ). The majority of
7900-416: The ridge-top site to the slopes. The tool assemblage found resembles that of other Northern Levantine Pre-Pottery Neolithic (settlement) sites. In 1963, over 3,000 Neolithic tools were uncovered, the vast majority of excellent quality flint, only a handful of obsidian . Cores , various blades, flakes , scrapers , burins , and projectile points , were the most common tool types. Excavations of Space 16,
8000-415: The same function in the culture, during the Pre-Pottery Neolithic B (PPNB). The several adjoining rectangular, doorless, and windowless rooms have floors of polished lime reminiscent of Roman terrazzo floors. Carbon dating has yielded dates between 8800 and 8000 BCE . Several T-pillars up to 1.5 meters tall occupy the center of the rooms. A pair decorated with fierce-looking lions is the rationale for
8100-416: The site in seasonal migrations. There is no evidence of substantial woodlands nearby; 90% of the charcoal recovered at the site was from pistachio or almond trees. Like most Pre-Pottery Neolithic (PPN) sites in the Urfa region, Göbekli Tepe was built on a high point on the edge of the mountains, giving it both a wide view over the plain beneath, and good visibility from the plain. This location also gave
8200-635: The site was built by a large, non-resident workforce, coerced or enticed there by a small religious elite. However, others estimate that just 7–14 people could have moved the pillars using ropes and water or another lubricant, with techniques used to construct other monuments such as Stonehenge . Experiments at Göbekli Tepe itself have suggested that all the PPNB structures currently exposed could have been built by 12–24 people in less than four months, allowing for time spent quarrying stone and gathering, and preparing food. These labour estimates are thought to be within
8300-419: The southern Plateau. Archaeologists disagree on how much labour was needed to construct the site. Schmidt maintained that "the work of quarrying, transporting, and erecting tons of heavy, monolithic, and almost universally well-prepared limestone pillars [...] was not within the capability of a few people". Using Thor Heyerdahl 's experiments with the moai of Rapa Nui as a reference, he estimated that moving
8400-407: The speakers of these three languages may once have been in closer contact. Kurdish varieties are divided into three or four groups, with varying degrees of mutual intelligibility. In historical evolution terms, Kurmanji is less modified than Sorani and Pehlewani in both phonetic and morphological structure. The Sorani group has been influenced by among other things its closer cultural proximity to
8500-476: The tell structures of this part of southern Europe, one developed by Paul Halstead and the other by John Chapman. Chapman envisaged the tell as witness to a nucleated communal society , whereas Halstead emphasized the idea that they arose as individual household structures. Thessalian tells often reflect small hamlets with a population of around 40–80. The Toumbas of Macedonia and the Magoulas of Thessaly are
8600-477: The tell, there is an incised platform with two sockets that could have held pillars and a surrounding flat bench. This platform corresponds to the oldest parts of the tell. Continuing the naming pattern, it is called "complex E". Owing to its similarity to the cult-buildings at Nevalı Çori it has also been called "Temple of the Rock". Its floor has been carefully hewn out of the bedrock and smoothed, reminiscent of
8700-679: The top of a rocky mountaintop, with no clear evidence of agricultural cultivation produced to date, has played a prominent role in this debate. Archaeological evidence suggests that the inhabitants processed cereal at the site, though it is unclear whether it was wild or cultivated. No definitive purpose has been determined for the megalithic enclosures; Schmidt had described them as the "world's first temple[s]", but incorrectly surmised that they were intentionally and ritually backfilled. Recent stratigraphic studies have instead revealed that they were filled by slope slide events, and sometimes repaired and modified thereafter. The architecture and iconography
8800-494: The tower and walls at Tell es-Sultan (Jericho), as well as large, roughly contemporaneous circular buildings at Göbekli Tepe, Nevalı Çori , Çayönü , Wadi Feynan 16 , Jerf el-Ahmar , Tell 'Abr 3 , and Tepe Asiab . Archaeologists typically associate these structures with communal activities which, together with the communal effort needed to build them, helped to maintain social interactions in PPN communities as they grew in size. The T-shaped pillar tradition seen at Göbekli Tepe
8900-586: The two official languages of Iraq and is in political documents simply referred to as "Kurdish". The Kurdish varieties belong to the Iranian branch of the Indo-European family . They are generally classified as Northwestern Iranian languages, or by some scholars as intermediate between Northwestern and Southwestern Iranian. Martin van Bruinessen notes that "Kurdish has a strong South-Western Iranian element", whereas "Zaza and Gurani [...] do belong to
9000-519: The upper layers of the site. At some point, attempts had been made to break up some of the pillars, presumably by farmers who mistook them for ordinary large rocks. In October 1994, German archaeologist Klaus Schmidt , who had previously been working at Nevalı Çori , was looking for evidence of similar sites in the area and decided to re-examine the location described by the Chicago researchers in 1963. Asking in nearby villages about hills with flint, he
9100-457: The virtually-uninterrupted use of the hill for agricultural purposes since it ceased to operate as a ceremonial center. Around the beginning of the 8th millennium BCE , Göbekli Tepe lost its importance. The advent of agriculture and animal husbandry brought new realities to human life in the area, and the "Stone-age zoo" apparently lost whatever significance it had had for the region's older, foraging communities. The plateau Göbekli Tepe
9200-513: The walls of the circular building. In 2017, fragments of human crania with incisions were discovered at the site, interpreted as a manifestation of the widespread Neolithic skull cult . Special preparation of human crania in the form of plastered human skulls is known from the Pre-Pottery Neolithic period at Levantine sites such as Tell es-Sultan (also known as Jericho ), Tell Aswad , and Yiftahel , and later in Anatolia at Çatalhöyük . At
9300-425: The western edge of the hill, a lionlike figure was found. In this area, flint and limestone fragments occur more frequently. It was, therefore, suggested that this could have been some kind of sculpture workshop. It is unclear, on the other hand, how to classify three phallic depictions from the surface of the southern plateau. They are near the quarries of classical times, making their dating difficult. Apart from
9400-438: The word "tell" itself is one of the most common prefixes for Palestinian toponyms . The Arabic word khirbet , also spelled khirbat ( خربة ), meaning "ruin", also occurs in the names of many archaeological tells, such as Khirbet et-Tell (roughly meaning "heap of ruins"). A tell can form only if natural and man-made material accumulates faster than it is removed by erosion and human-caused truncation , which explains
9500-449: The world's oldest known megaliths . Many of these pillars are decorated with anthropomorphic details, clothing, and sculptural reliefs of wild animals, providing archaeologists rare insights into prehistoric religion and the particular iconography of the period. The 15 m (50 ft) high, 8 ha (20-acre) tell is densely covered with ancient domestic structures and other small buildings, quarries, and stone-cut cisterns from
9600-672: The world. Archaeologists have long associated the appearance of these settlements with the Neolithic Revolution —the transition from hunting and gathering to agriculture—but disagree on whether the adoption of farming caused people to settle down, or settling down caused people to adopt farming. Despite the name, the Neolithic Revolution in Southwest Asia was "drawn out and locally variable". Elements of village life appeared as early as 10,000 years before
9700-400: Was at its peak. Schmidt saw the construction of Göbekli Tepe as contributing to the later development of urban civilization. Schmidt also speculated on the belief systems of the groups that created Göbekli Tepe, based on comparisons with other shrines and settlements. He presumed shamanic practices and suggested that the T-shaped pillars represent human forms, perhaps ancestors, whereas he saw
9800-418: Was confirmed by the find of a 3-by-3 metre piece at the southeastern slope of the plateau. Unequivocally Neolithic are three T-shaped pillars that had not yet been levered out of the bedrock. The largest of them lies on the northern plateau. It has a length of 7 m (23 ft) and its head has a width of 3 m (10 ft). Its weight may be around 50 tons. The two other unfinished pillars lie on
9900-699: Was considered a sacred place. The archaeological site was first noted in a survey conducted by Istanbul University and the University of Chicago in 1963. American archaeologist Peter Benedict identified the stone tools collected from the surface of site as characteristic of the Aceramic Neolithic , but apparently mistook the upper parts of the T-shaped pillars for grave markers. The hill had long been under agricultural cultivation, and generations of local inhabitants had frequently moved rocks and placed them in clearance piles, which may have disturbed
10000-426: Was guided to Göbekli Tepe by Mahmut Yıldız, whose family owned the land the site was situated on. The Yıldız family had previously discovered finds while ploughing there, which they reported to the local museum. Having found similar structures at Nevalı Çori, Schmidt recognized the possibility that the stone slabs were not grave markers as supposed by Benedict, but the tops of prehistoric megaliths . He began excavations
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