Göbekli Tepe
Last day in Hannover (see Twitter passim), and I'm scouting around to see what's happening in the tech world. This story doesn't really quality, but it's interesting stuff.
From the Smithsonian magazine: the world's oldest temple: Göbekli Tepe, Urfa, Turkey.
This place is form the Neolithic, the last Stone Age, a full 11,000 years old. A full two millennia before Çatalhöyük. Before agriculture, before the domestication of animals. 6,000 years before Stonehenge or the invention of writing. "There's more time between Gobekli Tepe and the Sumerian clay tablets [etched in 3300 B.C.] than from Sumer to today," says Gary Rollefson, an archaeologist at Whitman College in Walla Walla, Washington, who is familiar with Schmidt's work. "Trying to pick out symbolism from prehistoric context is an exercise in futility."
Literally awe-inspiring.
From the Smithsonian magazine: the world's oldest temple: Göbekli Tepe, Urfa, Turkey.
This place is form the Neolithic, the last Stone Age, a full 11,000 years old. A full two millennia before Çatalhöyük. Before agriculture, before the domestication of animals. 6,000 years before Stonehenge or the invention of writing. "There's more time between Gobekli Tepe and the Sumerian clay tablets [etched in 3300 B.C.] than from Sumer to today," says Gary Rollefson, an archaeologist at Whitman College in Walla Walla, Washington, who is familiar with Schmidt's work. "Trying to pick out symbolism from prehistoric context is an exercise in futility."
Literally awe-inspiring.