Major Changes at Göbekli Tepe and Stunning New Discovery _ Megalithomania

So we're here at Gobekli Tepe in September 2025 and I want to give you a quick update because there's a lot of changes taking place. We can see some today already. Behind me in enclosure C, they're reconstructing the walls and they're even rebuilding some of the T-pillars, rather than actually excavating the rest of the site. They've discovered this remarkable statue between structures B and structure D, but it just shows you that discoveries are constantly being made. So hey Megalithomaniacs, here we are once again at Gobekli Tepe in southeast Turkey. This is actually a new walkway, so lots more concrete and gravel and wood has been reconstructed here and a whole load of it's actually closed in September 2025, but you can see the main part of the site and there's lots of construction going on here. So I'm gonna just inspect it, have a look at it, give you an update of what's going on here, but things will change over the next few months, over the next year, and it'll be much more open to visitors I'm sure. But there is, we know there is a full reconstruction going on inside enclosure C, which I'm interested to have a look at. So there's a few other little discoveries, we've heard that some T-pillars have been exposed, other such things, so let's get in and take a look. So here we are, here we have, you know, there's actually a walkway, wheelbarrows, look at all these poles, what on earth is going on? And so that goes into the site and leads to enclosure C where they're reconstructing it. There's a lot of changes taking place, we can see some today already, for example behind me in enclosure C, they're reconstructing the walls and they're even rebuilding some of the T-pillars. The problem is they appear to have moved some of the stones from where they should be, and this wall isn't necessarily exactly how they think it is, and we know that these walls may have been added later, so they're actually building over the edges of some of the T-pillars. I hope they're not going to cause any damage with this. And so they're doing a huge amount, they're building a whole new path going up the top of the hill and removing another path, I believe it's because they're excavating the area, so that could mean some of the site is getting opened, more of it can be seen, we'll have to wait and see. And what concerns me is they're spending all this money and time on like reconstructing enclosure C so it looks like something out of a kind of postcard or a painting, rather than actually excavate the rest of the site. So why would they do that? Why would they waste their time? It looks fine as it is, they preserved it, it's all in good condition, why do they want to mess it up? This really really baffles me, but let's see how things evolve anyway. But we're going to look further around the site, see if there's any other changes that we can report on, but I just wanted to give you this update because what we've seen already has concerned us somewhat already. So let's see what else we can see, let's head around this way, we'll get a closer look at enclosure C because some of the stones, some of the T-pillars might actually have been revealed, that's what we're thinking. So they might have actually cleared away some of the debris, so we might be able to see stuff we've not seen before. So we're looking down here on enclosure C and this is September 2025, so I want to point out some changes here because you can notice the wall, you see the wall all the way around it and you see that there's concrete, they're putting concrete into the walls, they're rebuilding the walls and they appear to be covering up some of the T-pillar designs, some of the actual paintings, sorry, carvings on these T-pillars. So what on earth are they doing? Look at that central T-pillar where they've got the chains hanging from, they're basically rebuilding that entire pillar, they're reconstructing it into what it would have looked like, I mean it's massive, I mean that could be as tall as a T-pillar as we but what concerns me is that number one, they're using concrete and they're rebuilding the wall using modern materials to cover up some of the carvings on the T-pillars. Now this is a really major thing they're doing here, I mean if you, I don't know, I can't imagine UNESCO would agree to that, I mean maybe they have but this is quite concerning. I mean one of the things as well, we can just see over there, you see that third pillar on the right there, you can actually see some shaping on there that I've not seen before, so that looks like it's been slightly uncovered but then they've recovered it and rebuilt over it again with the modern construction. So yeah, this is very strange, this is very strange indeed, that makes me get quite concerned about what is going on at the site, especially when they could be using their skills to actually excavate the site rather than reconstruct and cover up some of the carvings we see here at Gobekli Tepe. So that pillar there you can see just in the middle of the screen, that I've not seen before, so let's just take it over a little bit, as close as I can get right now, but look at the shaping on that, it's really interesting, it's got like a kind of, it's almost like it looks like a serpent going across the top then down the front with a kind of eye or possibly just, it's almost like a cut mark on the side of the pillar, so that is really intriguing, now the problem is that would have been really interesting to see that before they rebuilt this wall over it, so this is kind of strange what's going on here, I can't even see the T pillars in the outer circle anymore either, this is all the inner circle, if we actually look at the outer circle, where are they? Where's the porthole stone that Andrew discovered in 2015? That's kind of, it looks like it's just been removed, it just isn't there, unless I just can't see it, oh maybe, no you can actually see it I think just behind, behind that wall, yes you can see it, it's over there actually I think, hopefully that's it there, see it just behind that wall, it just looks like they're covering up so many of the pillars, parts of the pillars, hopefully not too much of them, it looks like they just, like they're trying to reconstruct how they think it looked, so we'll give them credit for that, but why do that when the rest of the site needs excavating? So we're overlooking closure D here and closure C over in this direction, quite a lot of excavation has now taken place, there's a lot of talk about no excavation taking place, or not enough, we know very, there's a few people, Jimmy Corsetti and others, and you know in some senses that's correct, but in another sense there is excavation taking place, and the problem is, is that they're really doing a lot of reconstruction and conservation, rebuilding T-pillars and walls, which to me, why? I mean what, why is that necessary? But anyway, there's a few features here in enclosure D which are being exposed now, which we'll have a quick look at, including, it looks like you can now see the kind of walkway coming in from the south, and also we can now see the floor and the shaping more accurately of the enclosure itself, which shows the geometry more, and this is how I was able to determine this egg shape, not the egg shape I originally thought, a different type of egg shape, which is based upon a 5-12-13 Pythagorean triangle, or two of them, one of the things we've noticed here as well is that they're clearing away a lot of stuff, new stuff's being exposed, we've seen like the boar statue, which was just down here, which is now in the museum, as well as the large slab underneath it, there's a few other pieces are being found in the enclosures as they've been excavating them, most of these are now in the Channel Earth Museum, but there's a few things going on here I want to point out, you can now, now you can see the floor, we know there's an H carved on the floor next to this kind of natural indentation in the rock, which has been jammed in with other stones, but also we're now seeing the shaping of the enclosure in much more detail, which really intrigues me, and it really does suggest that these walls were added later, because the curb comes up about this high off the ground, from here to here, is where they could have slotted the T-pillars in originally, rather than the walls they claim were built straight away, even though the walls actually cover up some of the artwork, and so yeah, let's have a close look at a couple of features inside enclosure D, because it's such a fascinating part of Quebec-Litepe, down in this area here, down to the south east, towards the winter solstice, we have another stone that was discovered, just down in that area there, just in some, one of those stones that makes up the wall, that's also got an H on it, with two serpents, curved serpents on either side, like we find on the belts of the main pillars here, and this is exactly oriented to the winter solstice sunrise, which would have been a clear horizon from this particular spot, so we have these kind of things towards the south, and you can see the two central T-pillars, and there's two T-pillars in the wall in that slab, that slab there really marks where the entrance probably would have been, and that would have stretched back in between to your right structure B, and to your left structure C, and so there would have been a possibly a routeway through an entrance that could have been stepped down on these last slabs into enclosure D, coming down this way, and so it gives some sense of the entrance to the site. While we were actually in Turkey filming this video, a discovery came out just a couple of days after we were at Göbekli Tepe, which was announced by Turkey's Minister of Culture and Tourism Mehmet Nuri Ersoy, who said they discovered this remarkable statue, a human statue, between structures B and structure D, so basically this was mounted in the wall horizontally, almost against the ground in the lower part of the wall. It's very similar to some other kind of naval holding statues that have been found at Göbekli Tepe previously. It looks very worn, it was kind of taken out by the archaeologists, hopefully it'll be on display in the museum, but it's really intriguing. Some people have suggested it's like a ritual votive offering, and it was placed there specifically between these two enclosures. Others say it was just a reuse of stone, a convenient chunk of stone, to actually kind of build the wall, which were thought to be added later after the main enclosures were built. We're looking at enclosure C here again. We've walked all the way around it, we've tried to assess it, and in particular its relationship to the outer walls, which according to Klaus Schmidt, was much earlier than the inner enclosure that you see here, which is being rebuilt right now. Now the ethics behind them rebuilding this I think is going to be debated, because they are putting a proper wall in place here. It looks as if there are small amounts of cement that are holding the blocks of stone in place, and this is clearly being constructed as a showpiece for the press, for promotional purposes, and also obviously for tourism, to try and show exactly what these enclosures looked like in the past. But of course this is the way that the archaeologists want to see that they look like in the past. So there's some good points and some bad points. The good point is definitely that they are reconstructing one of the two central pillars here, the one on the left as we look. You can see it in chains there. They are clearly getting all of the pieces that they found and making it like a three-dimensional jigsaw really, which is great. I think that's good because eventually it will give us an idea of what height that particular pillar was. But around the outside you still have the stones of the outer enclosure, and one of these we can see here right in front of me, and this has been more exposed now, this is a porthole stone. It's exactly in line with the axis going south-southeast to north-northwest. I cite it in my books and show that it was a porthole stone, or Solhol, or Seelenloch in German, very similar to the one that we see in enclosure D, in exactly the same position. And I think that this allowed the spirit to go from the interior of the enclosures to the outside, either to the sky world or to the underworld, and back again. And it was an integral part of it. We see them also in enclosure B. There's this almost thing that looks like a fireplace with animals above it in a square opening, which is over there. And there's another hole actually within the rock wall itself, which is above it. Both of those, I think, were there as Solhols or Seelenloch. And it's a part of it. They believed that there was spirit in this place, and those spirits had to come in and go out. And this is something which you could possibly associate with the concept of portals today, but for them it was something that was with them constantly. You could be in this world, you could be in the next world, the next moment, you know, probably through rituals, dancing, hallucinogens, and whatever else that they'd use to get into alternate states of consciousness. So it's all up here behind me where we have the area of the wish tree. Now we can't go up there at the moment. It's September 2025. They're rebuilding a whole bunch of pathways. But here you can see this domestic, potentially, an area, these square enclosures, which, you know, could be used, as Andrew said, for more sacred purposes. But also, if you look at the orientation, they're all facing towards the main enclosures, which does suggest they may have been viewing platforms towards what was going on. Ceremonies, events, even concerts inside the main enclosures here. Because these certainly looked like they were much more kind of ceremonial, even music, even singing, acoustics, initiations, and everything else. And everyone would crowd around and watch what was going on. They could have even be sports, this is what some people say. So there's a lot of potential here. But these I find really interesting because up here, in that direction, that's where they found the totem pole, for instance. They found very sacred kind of statues, shamanic objects, and other such things. Just up there we have the famous mulberry tree or the wish tree, which has become quite well known. Even before Gobekli Tepe was discovered, this was a place of fertility, where women would come, they would make offerings, even sacrifice goats, it was one of the story states, to try and guarantee fertility and pregnancy and other such things. And it was so sacred, it was remembered to be sacred, even before Gobekli Tepe was rediscovered. So you can't go up there now, it's really the first time I've ever been anywhere, you've not been able to go up there because there are a whole load of new pathways, concrete, unfortunately, reconstructing, hopefully not damaging Gobekli Tepe here. But right in front of me and below the wish tree, we have this whole area here, some more of what they call domestic dwellings, which could have been, might well have been. Certainly what it appears now is that they started off as a sacred site and then villages were slowly, or villages would come up from Shanlurfa and they would start building and staying here and eventually a community formed here that may have not been here originally. So again, we're just looking at more of the kind of areas just outside where the main enclosures are towards, actually, this is towards the southeast. So this would be the direction where the sun would rise on the winter solstice, which we now believe could be connected with enclosure D and an alignment within that. And so all of this, what we see behind us, this walkway up there, none of that would have been here, you know, originally. So there would have been a clear view of the southeastern sky. So this is where a lot of the reconstruction is taking place behind me here in enclosure C. Now, what I like about it, they've actually, it actually reveals the geometry a lot better than it did before. And so I'm absolutely now a hundred percent confirmed that the geometry I kind of applied to it does seem to work. And same with enclosure D is more of that's now been excavated. We can actually see more accurately the geometry and it's a different type of egg shape than I originally thought. However, let's wait and see because, you know, the fact is they're doing, they are excavating here, but they're doing kind of mundane areas, you know, like the so-called domestic areas, the kind of areas where people lived and actually people want to see the other massive enclosures that were revealed in the GPR scan from 2013 and 14. So hopefully they'll start doing some major excavation. It looks like they're building a new path over the top towards where there's other excavations going to happen. So let's wait and see. We know excavations will be beginning at, uh, Ayan-la-Huyek and Jogenbirch, in fact, in October, November time, the Chinese and the Japanese team. So that is really exciting. So more of the Tazteplah sites are being unearthed. Whereas here, they're focusing on more than the kind of more mundane areas and they're doing more reconstruction and rebuilding for tourist infrastructure and conservation. So you can see here, they're doing a lot of reconstruction. So just, this is the pathway that's been relatively recently kind of put in. There was a wooden one before that, but they've actually taken away the wooden pathway, which you'd finish visiting the site and see an enclosure F and H and other such things. And they're building another one going further around, kind of going around this hill. So it could be because they're excavating here. It could be because hopefully they're opening more up to the public. So we'll actually be able to see more in the future of the site while they're excavating. So we don't know, we haven't heard the reports. We haven't got an update on that just yet, but there's a lot of reconstruction going on. So if you're visiting soon, you know, 2025, late 2025, you're going to notice this when you come here, but probably by next year when we return in May and in September, of course you can join us, this should all be done by then. So all up the hill, that whole walkway is being removed. I'm zooming in a bit. Yeah, you can see it's all completely gone. And then you've got the other roof structure over there where they were excavating. And down here, you can see all the kind of, is that concrete? I hope not. Coming down here, joining up with this one, which is relatively new, this one, because there was a wooden one here before. They've now built this larger gravel and concrete one instead. So we've got lots. This is the old wooden pathway. You can see that here. Yeah. So that's all gone now. They're kind of destroying that. Then you have the kind of more modern gravel pathway and a new one. They're building going around the main hill there as well. We just finished our trip to Göbekli Tepe here in Southeast Turkey in September 2025. As you can see, there's a few changes taking place. They're reconstructing Enclosure C. They're building walkways. We're moving old walkways. There's a lot of construction and reconstruction going on. So bear that in mind if you're visiting soon. But we do come back here next May. We're also visiting Armenia and next September as well. Check out the links below if you want to come and join us and explore. You can also get my little book on the subject and keep exploring Megalithomaniacs and we'll see you next time.