Garden of Eden or The World's First Temple?

[AliEnvy]

Fascinating either way...


Do these mysterious stones mark the site of the Garden of Eden? | Mail Online

Whatever the answer, the parallels with our own era are stark. As we contemplate a new age of ecological turbulence, maybe the silent, sombre, 12,000-year-old stones of Gobekli Tepe are trying to speak to us, to warn us, as they stare across the first Eden we destroyed.

Gobekli Tepe: The World’s First Temple? | History & Archaeology | Smithsonian Magazine

To Schmidt and others, these new findings suggest a novel theory of civilization. Scholars have long believed that only after people learned to farm and live in settled communities did they have the time, organization and resources to construct temples and support complicated social structures. But Schmidt argues it was the other way around: the extensive, coordinated effort to build the monoliths literally laid the groundwork for the development of complex societies.

The immensity of the undertaking at Gobekli Tepe reinforces that view. Schmidt says the monuments could not have been built by ragged bands of hunter-gatherers. To carve, erect and bury rings of seven-ton stone pillars would have required hundreds of workers, all needing to be fed and housed. Hence the eventual emergence of settled communities in the area around 10,000 years ago. "This shows sociocultural changes come first, agriculture comes later," says Stanford University archaeologist Ian Hodder, who excavated Catalhoyuk, a prehistoric settlement 300 miles from Gobekli Tepe. "You can make a good case this area is the real origin of complex Neolithic societies."

[melon]

Very fascinating! Reminds me of BSG's "Kobol," in a way...heh.

I'd like to add that calling it the "World's First Temple" would probably be exaggerating more than a little bit, if only because this site probably only has significance to the cultures of the Ancient Near East and, in turn, everything else that region successively inspired (i.e., Western Civilization). It may have only tangential importance to Indo-European culture, considering its age, and probably no importance to, say, the Far Eastern cultures like China and Japan, and probably not beyond parts of North Africa either.

Nonetheless, the importance of this site is immense, and I eagerly await what more we can learn from it.

[deep]

I think it is just as likely that is is "Kobol" as it is that is is the "Garden of Eden".


and what is a "Temple"?
a place where people gather to slaughter things?

[Bonoa]

and what is a "Temple"?
a place where people gather to slaughter things?

A place of worship and performing religious rituals. If that contains slaughtering, then, yeah.

I'd like to add that calling it the "World's First Temple" would probably be exaggerating more than a little bit, if only because this site probably only has significance to the cultures of the Ancient Near East and, in turn, everything else that region successively inspired (i.e., Western Civilization). It may have only tangential importance to Indo-European culture, considering its age, and probably no importance to, say, the Far Eastern cultures like China and Japan, and probably not beyond parts of North Africa either.

Yes, it is of great importance. It is proven that Göbekli Tepe is the oldest temple in the world, so it's older than Chinese and Japanese temple sites. It had been in use for millennia. There is a theory that the erected stones contain the oldest script in the world; the stones bear reliefs of animals and human hands and heads.
What is really playing with the minds of archaeologists, is what comes first: the temple or the settlement? Normally, men settle and then they build a temple. But the oldest parts are dated ca 9000BC and it it is assumed that men didn't settle until 6000 BC! And what to think of organization and man power needed to build the temple. Even though men did not settle yet, it can be seen as a first step into that direction and still 3000 years earlier.
But I'm curious too, only 5 percent of the site is excavated yet!


And about the Garden of Eden, it is assumed that that site would have been in Ethiopia/ Eritrea. If you look at the climate it would be more logic than the harsher climate of Northern Turkey!
That Daily Mail article is definately NOT written by an archaeologist!