Let me begin by saying one hour is not enough to visit any archaeological site in depth. Especially since it took a while to really pick out the detail on the monoliths. We stared…and stared…and then all of a sudden, two arms chiseled on the stone would come into focus.

En route to Urfa (Sanliurfa), we stopped at (video…Gobekli Tepe, one of the oldest places of worship ever discovered. Dating back to the 10th century B.C., it is believed that this is the original garden of Eden and origin of religion. The ruins even predate settled human life. Pre-pottery, pre-writing, pre-everything, ex-Marine and I were ready to revisit our hunter-gatherer past. Oh…wait…I still am a hunter-gatherer, ask Steve.

Turned off the highway to a parking lot where two camels greeted us…View image, and began walking around the ruins while Oz told us about the different sections; beginning in a large worshipping area that once held two big monoliths. It is thought that when the people of Gobekli Tepe left, they either took monoliths and worshipping objects with or other cultures took them. Everything that we saw was in situ. Deep, round holes are thought to have been pools for people to wash themselves in the worshipping area…View image.

Gobekli Tepe wouldn’t have been discovered if it wasn’t for a local farmer. Frustrated with his inability to break a rock in the field, he sent his son to a museum in the city with a piece of this rock thinking perhaps they’d pay some money for it. Long story short, a German archaeologist came out to see it, had an “a ha” moment and carbon dating of animal bones said this site was 9,500 years old.

This hilltop sanctuary is only 15 km/9.3 miles northeast of the town of Urfa (now called Sanlıurfa) in Southeastern Turkey…View image. Erected by hunter-gathers, Gobekli Tepe is considered the oldest human-made place of worship ever discovered. Two thousand years later, the entire complex of stones, pillars and carvings was deliberately buried. Why? No one knows. A team of German and Turkish archaeologists are currently excavating the site. Note: National Geographic magazine had an intensive article about Gobekli Tepe in their June, 2011 issue.

Monolithic T-pillars are linked by coarsely built walls to form circular or oval structures…View image. So far, four such buildings have been uncovered and surveys indicate the existence of 16 additional structures. Plank walkways led us around the different pits surrounded by barbed wire to keep looters out…View image…while descriptions of what was found inside each pit was posted in three languages…View image.

The very interesting anthropomorphic monoliths decorated with carved reliefs of animals and of abstract pictograms kept the site from being a “yawner” aka “pile of rocks” for us. That is, whenever, the group was given a spare moment to focus on the monoliths trying to pick out the different creatures. Foxes, gazelles, boars, lions, bulls, tigers, snakes, insects, spiders…..View image…ducks…View image, and vultures. One of the T-shaped rocks had carved arms…View image, which may indicate stylized humans.

The pictograms may represent sacred symbols. For example, the vultures. Vultures appear as sacred symbols in Egypt and are revered in Tibet where they are used for sky burial. These vulture representations possibly show an early form of sky burial. When the shrine was constructed, this area of Anatolia was green and lush as it is becoming once again thanks to irrigation.

Other than an enclosure believed to be the birthing room for women…View image, the carvings were the highlight of Gobekli Tepe.

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From Gobekli Tepe, a short drive to Urfa (Sanliurfa), the birthplace of Abraham.