TextSearch

Scholars say the organisation needed to build the 12,000-year-old temple may mark the beginnings of class society and patriarchy

Turkey's Göbekli Tepe: is this the world’s first architecture?ePaperSubscribeNewslettersSearchSearchProfileSign inThe Year Ahead: 2023Art marketMuseums & heritageExhibitionsBooksPodcastsColumnsAdventures with Van GoghRussia-Ukraine warSubscribeePaperNewslettersThe Year Ahead: 2023Art marketMuseums & heritageExhibitionsBooksPodcastsColumnsAdventures with Van GoghRussia-Ukraine warConservation & PreservationnewsTurkey's Göbekli Tepe: is this the world’s first architecture?Scholars say the organisation needed to build the 12,000-year-old temple may mark the beginnings of class society and patriarchyRobert Bevan3 August 2018ShareThe 12,000-year-old site in south-east Turkey is being considered for Unesco World Heritage listing Courtesy of TeomancimitAt around 12,000 years old, Göbekli Tepe in south-east Turkey has been billed as the world’s oldest temple. It is many millennia older than Stonehenge or Egypt’s great pyramids, built in the pre-pottery Neolithic period before writing or the wheel. But should Göbekli Tepe, which became a Unesco World Heritage Site in July, also be regarded as the world’s oldest piece of architecture?Archaeologists are fascinated by Göbekli Tepe, an artificial mound spread across eight hectares at the top end of the Fertile Crescent near the present-day city of Sanliurfa. It features a series of circular sunken structures that had been occupied for a thousand years before they were back-filled and abandoned. Construction techniques vary but in the most elaborate there is a ring of T-shaped monolithic columns with a pair of larger, carved T-columns at the centre up to five metres tall. These not only supported a roof (for at least some of their life) but also represented abstracted human figures that were part of a belief system that is not yet understood. They are sculptural as well as structural, with animal figures in relief. A column with a carving of a dog—the first domesticated animal ZhenganThe largest circle is 17m by 25m but geotechnical surveys suggest there are bigger structures waiting to be unearthed. The earliest limestone monoliths were quarried locally but stones were later transported long distances. The communal effort involved in this endeavour must have involved hundreds of people at a period when most social groups had no more than 25 members. Göbekli Tepe was built by hunter-gatherers, apparently before the Agricultural Revolution when fully permanent settlements came into being with plant cultivation and animal herding. Rather than architecture being the product of organised societies, as has long been thought, there is new thinking that, in fact, it may have been the organisation needed to build on such a scale that helped usher in agriculture and settled society. Archaeological definitions of architecture tend to be broader than those of design professionals; it includes structures that create artificial space with, say, mud bricks, smoothed floors and right-angles. Architects tend to separate building—a simple vernacular shelter assembled out of utility—from architecture, in which conscious design that goes beyond the utilitarian comes into play. Moritz Kinzel, an archaeologist and architect based at Copenhagen University who is working on the site, says: “Building becomes architecture not just because it is monumental but because of technical solutions and perceptions of space—it has a mindset.” Göbekli Tepe also goes beyond the human scale. He reminds us, however, that the domestic and the ritual cannot be separated to the degree they are today, and that older houses with ritual components have been discovered at sites in Jordan and the southern Levant.Göbekli Tepe was built by hunter-gatherers, apparently before the Agricultural RevolutionKinzel argues that the design experimentation found at Göbekli Tepe should encourage us to avoid chicken-and-egg arguments about the primacy of architecture or agriculture. Instead, the site illustrates a cusp period, with architecture emerging alongside more complex organisations that produced surpluses and gradually shifted from gathering wild crops to farming. Some of the earliest domesticated wheat was found in the area and the Göbekli Tepe stones feature depictions of dogs—the first animal to be domesticated by humans. It was a trial and error period, an age of architectural and societal experiment at the beginnings of the Agricultural Revolution rather than one preceding the other. “Permanent buildings do not necessarily reflect permanent settlements,” Kinzel says, suggesting seasonal use at Göbekli Tepe. The construction process of the monumental structures may have triggered [people] staying longer, forcing them to invent new ways of dealing with arising new challenges.”Current thinking is that Göbekli Tepe may not have been solely a cult centre but had other social and economic functions such as feasting, exchanging goods and finding partners and other activities that promoted a common social identity. The architecture may mark the beginnings of class society and patriarchy. Noting the functional as well as aesthetic purpose of Göbekli Tepe’s T-columns, an architectural researcher who works with Kinzel, Dietmar Kurapkat from the Ostbayerische Technische Hochschule Regensburg, Germany, has written: “It is no exaggeration to label these… buildings with the term architecture.”Conservation & PreservationArchitectureAntiquities & ArchaeologyTurkeyShareRelated contentArchaeologynewsMysterious stone structures in Saudi Arabia are around 7,000 years old, making them one of the oldest examples of widespread monument-makingCiting the discovery of animal skulls and horns, researchers suggest that mustatils may have had a religious purpose Garry ShawArchaeologynewsCarving of man holding his penis and surrounded by leopards is oldest known depiction of a narrative scene, archaeologists sayNeolithic bench discovered in Turkey shows a discernible narrative progression, and dates to around 11,000 BCClaire VoonArchaeologynewsDiscovery of Turkish 11,400-year-old village challenges ideas of when and why humans first settled down Excavations at monumental site Karahan Tepe, near the Turkish-Syrian border, suggest that society was established before the dawn of agricultureAyla Jean YackleySubscribe to The Art Newspaper’s digital newsletter for your daily digest of essential news, views and analysis from the international art world delivered directly to your inbox.Newsletter sign-upInformationAboutContactCookie policyPrivacy policyTerms and conditionsAdvertiseSister PapersSponsorship policyFollow usFacebookInstagramTwitterYouTubeLinkedIn© The Art Newspaper × We use cookies to personalise content and ads, to provide social media features and to analyse our traffic. We also share information about your use of our site with our social media, advertising and analytics partners who may combine it with other information that you’ve provided to them or that they’ve collected from your use of their services. Read more Strictly necessary Save & Close Accept all Decline all Show details Hide details Cookie declaration About cookies Strictly necessary Strictly necessary cookies allow core website functionality such as user login and account management. The website cannot be used properly without strictly necessary cookies. Cookie report Name Provider / Domain Expiration Description ADFEAuthCookie .theartnewspaper.com Session Required for user profile functionality amplify-signin-with-hostedUI .theartnewspaper.com 1 year Required for user profile functionality tan.adaa .theartnewspaper.com 1 year This cookie is used to determine if the visitor has visited the website before, or if it is a new visitor on the website. Cookies are small text files that are placed on your computer by websites that you visit. Websites use cookies to help users navigate efficiently and perform certain functions. Cookies that are required for the website to operate properly are allowed to be set without your permission. All other cookies need to be approved before they can be set in the browser. You can change your consent to cookie usage at any time on our Privacy Policy page. Cookies consent ID : Cookie report created by CookieScript

Turkey’s Göbekli Tepe: is this the world’s first architecture?