A place so conflicted and hellbent on concealment, it was literally buried over with earth on multiple occasions with the unintentional effect of preserving it.
Imagine a circle of stone pillars built on top of circles of stone pillars covered over with layers of ground until a hill is formed.
If you stood on top of the hill you could look out over vast and formerly fertile plains and contemplate what the heck the hill builders and stone carvers were thinking.
Was it two separate groups? Did the carvers become the buriers or were the buriers simply agents of destruction- mortified at their own inadequacies by the crowning achievement of Gobekli Tepe- perhaps the world's oldest temple (predating Stonehenge by 6000 years).
The site predates the wheel, predates agriculture, predates writing. The construction of which took significant effort and was a masterclass in project management. But all they had was time, like Easter Island time.
And the thing was overlooked as a no-big-deal Medieval grave until carbon dating placed it to neolithic- the period when humans were about to get it together to stop roaming around and farm and be sedentary.
This time is labelled as PPNA- Pre-Pottery Neolithic A, denoting an absence of ceramics.
It is a monument to flagrant ancientness and in-your-face ingenuity.
By virtue of the subjects of the anthropomorphic pillars- fearsome beasts, half-human entities and insects,we know that the designers were motivated by fear.
Whereas later societies relied on farming and fertility for time-killing and inspiration, these stone carvers revered birds of prey like any sane mortal.
The street cleaner of your carcass- a vulture; the symbol of a veritable cult of death.
'Vulture Culture' if you will.
Gobekli Tepe may be the first human built religious site. It may be the first temple. It may be the first pub (evidence of beer brewing and feasting).
It may be the first all year rave.
Attributing firsts here feels arbitrary. People have always been people- through and through.
As if an alien 10,000 years from now found an iphone and decided it was an artifact of spirituality.
I write here for any future archaeologists: THIS MEANS NOTHING.
Not symbolically charged or meaningful just doing same same human stuff.
The discovery of Gobekli Tepe was a watershed moment for projection bros- the time when "we" went from carefree wanderers to lazy homesteaders. Pre-pottery partyers to wheat planters.
The desire to form religions and drive them into a singular location facilitates the coordination and control of populations.
I think about all their junk- knives, spears, carving tools. I mentally organize them into boxes- KEEP/DONATE/GARBAGE.
I bury my personal effects in the ground and build an earth pile over top. I wait approximately ten thousand years for doctor so and so to speculate about what I thought.
National Geographic notes that the people of Gobekli Tepe grew steadily worse at temple building.
The earliest rings were the biggest and most sophisticated, both artistically and technically.
Over time the carvings and pillars became more and more rudimentary until they plum gave up altogether.
My secular religion of anxiety covered in mud with the intention forgotten (thank god).
They'll marvel about how I thought without feelings they understand, how I dreamed without the right words. Why I even bothered.
Trying to unravel the meaning of Gobekli Tepe is an exercise in futility.
The gulf between them and us is too great. We might as well just bury it back over with dirt and stop wondering.