10 INCREDIBLE Göbekli Tepe Discoveries You May NEVER Have Heard of

Hello everybody and welcome to Ancient Architects. Please subscribe now to get the latest ancient history news and independent research from around the world. Situated in the city of Sanliurfa in southeastern Anatolia, or modern day Turkey, Göbekli Tepe dates to between 12,000 and 10,000 years ago, which is the pre-pottery Neolithic period of ancient Anatolian history. This was before the people that lived there had invented pottery, when vessels, tools and implements were made out of stone. It's 7,500 years older than the Great Pyramid of Egypt, 7,000 years older than Stonehenge and it's enormous. The site consists of a number of rectangular and circular enclosures, many of which are supported by massive T-shaped pillars, which are the world's oldest known megaliths, and many of them are decorated with anthropomorphic details, clothing, wild animal reliefs and iconography. The craftsmanship for its age is truly breathtaking. Göbekli Tepe was purposefully buried beneath a hill that covers 20 acres of land. The archaeological site is incredibly huge and even though so far only a small percentage has been excavated, it has fundamentally changed the way we view the known origins of human civilization just after the Ice Age in the very remote past. It was then discovered that Göbekli Tepe was just one of dozens more sites in the region, all of which date to the remote pre-pottery Neolithic past. Turkish authorities have named this region Tas Tepele and have highlighted the 12 most important sites of interest, including Karahan Tepe, Ayan Lahoyuk, Sey Burç and more, with Göbekli Tepe at the heart. I have a new video playlist called Tas Tepele as I look to cover all the sites in this region and I've linked it at the end of this video and also in the description below. Regarding Göbekli Tepe, many of you will have seen the pictures of the circular enclosures and the finely decorated T-shaped pillars, including the famous Pillar 43, also known as the Vulture Stone. But there really is so much more to Göbekli Tepe and so, for the rest of this video, I'll show you 10 incredible finds from Göbekli Tepe, many of which you may never have seen before. Number 1 – The Bucranium Portal Stone Found on the northern wall of Enclosure B is this incredible decorated stone window or hole, which is flanked by two foxes, apparently portrayed in the moment of jumping. A bucranium was placed above the hole. At this stage, it's unknown whether this stone marks the entrance to a building or whether the carved animals are merely guarding a niche, but the find in itself is a real thing of beauty. Number 2 – Stone Human Heads and Masks Dozens of stone human masks and heads, some weighing up to 2kg and dating to between the 9th and 8th millenniums BC have been discovered. Experts believe they had a cultic purpose and similar examples are also found in the Levant. I made a video on these a number of months ago and I've linked it below in the description. Some of the artefacts are clearly mask-like, having a concave inner surface with a crudely carved human face on the reverse. Some of them are just 4.5cm in size and therefore are miniature objects, far smaller than a life-size depiction. Most of the heads and masks seem to have been purposefully placed inside the fill of the site, often close to the central pillars. Number 3 – The Human and Animal Figurine Sometimes it's the small things that can really be amazing, and this figurine measuring just 5.1cm by 2.3 by 2.7 was a surface find from the hilltop. We see a person sitting on an unknown object with legs dragged towards the body. Between his legs is an erect phallus and we can see a quadruped animal sitting on the person's left shoulder. Just about all of the stone statues and artefacts at Gobekli Tepe are in fact made of limestone, but this one is made of green nephrite. Maybe it was a pendant, maybe it was once fixed to a support, but it is a unique and unusual find at Gobekli Tepe. Number 4 – The Unfinished T-Shaped Pillar Many of you will have seen the unfinished pillar of Karahan Tepe, but not everyone knows there is an unfinished T-shaped pillar in the quarry of Gobekli Tepe. Today it's badly eroded, is 7m long and has a volume of around 20m3, and you can see it on this picture, partly cut from the bedrock, with Gobekli Tepe in the background. Number 5 – Stone Buttons Beads and buttons are found right across Tastapela, but you could easily mistake the buttons at Gobekli Tepe with more modern examples. They are often made from greenstone, maybe nephrite. They were likely used on the person, and they do appear frequently across the site. The craftsmanship of these tiny items is beautiful and astonishing, some of which are perfectly shaped with the smallest perfect drill hole running through them. Number 6 – The Human Headstone Many of us have seen the famous vulture stone or Pillar 43 of Gobekli Tepe, but not everyone knows there is another vulture depicted at the site. This is taken from Enclosure D, the best preserved building from Gobekli Tepe's oldest phase. Archaeologists know that during the backfilling of the enclosures, certain objects were deliberately placed next to the pillars, and immediately to the north of Pillar 18, which is one of the enclosure's central pillars, is this stone slab. We can see a large predator which some say is a hyena. We see a vulture with a very pronounced beak and wings outspread. Above the hyena are the legs of another animal, and then what looks like a human head, clearly detached from the body. Whether this head is part of a narrative scene with the animals is unclear, but this is a unique find at Gobekli Tepe. Number 7 – The Guarding Beast Porthole Stone This is one of my favourite finds at Gobekli Tepe. A monumental porthole stone with two openings and measuring 3 metres by 3. As you can see, it is richly decorated with three half a metre long sculptures of quadrupeds, identified as a bull, a ram and a wildcat. You can also see a 1.5 metre long snake in high relief. Cut marks also surround the windows. When found, the stone was not in situ, so we don't know its original context, but it was clearly part of a once important building whose entrance had to be guarded accordingly. Number 8 – The Bone Spatula This small bone object measuring 5.3 by 1.9 by 0.3 centimetres is inscribed with two T-shaped forms, leading people to associate the imagery with Gobekli Tepe's famous T-shaped pillars. But not everyone agrees with this interpretation, because it's easy to make simple comparisons when really we do have a lack of understanding with regards to pre-pottery Neolithic art. Maybe they are T-shaped pillars but maybe not, but this small find really got people talking on its discovery. Number 9 – The Dead Uruks Pillar Pillar 66 of Enclosure H is fascinating, because we can see a side view of a Uruks, but the engraving is quite rough. As you can see, its legs are flexed and its tongue is seen hanging out, and most believe it's showing the animal deceased. It does remind you of the Uruks depiction from Çatalhöyük. There is a smaller animal just below it, which may be so small to simply emphasise the mighty size of the Uruks, the same reason why humans were depicted so small at Çatalhöyük. Interestingly, because of the somewhat crude nature of this carving, it's not considered to be an original decoration, being scratched onto the surface with rough lines. It does imply there was a second phase use for this older pillar. Number 10 – The Gobekli Tepe Totem Pole This incredible piece of stonework was discovered in 2009 and it reminds you of native North American totem poles. It was found set in the north-eastern wall of a rectangular building that was built during the second phase of Gobekli Tepe, during the pre-pottery Neolithic B. It stands 1.9 metres high and features three elements, one on top of the other. The uppermost part is a predator, maybe a bear but most likely a large cat, but the face of the animal has been completely damaged. Below the head, a short neck, arms and hands are clear to see. The arms are holding another destroyed head, likely a human, and it reminds you of the sculpture found at Karahan Tepe of a leopard on the back of a man. This statue from Gobekli Tepe may well be showing us the same thing. The second figure has human arms with his hands placed on the navel area, just like we see on the T-shaped pillars. There is another person below the arms and hands and thankfully the face is completely preserved. There is an unidentified object below the hands and some believe it's depicting the person giving birth. We see snakes on both sides, their heads being just above that of the smaller individual. This really is an incredible find and a fine way to end this video, showing 10 incredible discoveries from Gobekli Tepe you may never have heard of. Over the coming weeks, I will be making more videos on the Tastapela sites of Turkey, giving you more and more information about what is proving to be arguably the most important archaeological area in the world. Nothing compares to its age and scale, being created in remote prehistory. And with every new discovery, however big or small, they're helping us to understand the very formative years of human civilisation. Thank you very much for watching this episode of Ancient Architects. 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