Krugovi na bogato izrezbarenim kamenim blokovima koji datiraju oko 9500 godina prije naše ere, a stariji su od zemljoradničke kulture.

Kao dijete Klaus Schmidt je tragao po pećinama u njegovoj rodnoj Njemačkoj u nadi da će naići na prahistorijske slike. Trideset godina kasnije, kao član njemačkog arheološkog Instituta, našao je nešto neuporedivo važnije: kompleks svetilišta skoro dva puta stariji od bilo čega sličnog na planeti.

„ Ovo mjesto je Supernova", govori Schmidt stojeći ispod usamljenog drveta na vjetrovitom vrhu brda 35 milja sjeverno od turske granice sa Sirijom.

„ Od prvog trenutka kad sam ga ugledao znao sam da imam dva izbora: da odem i ne kažem nikome, ili da provedem ostatak života radeći ovdje".

Iza njega se pruža početak Anadolijskog platoa. Ispred njega, kao prašinom obojeno more, pruža se na jug stotinama milja Mesopotamijska ravan. Kameni krugovi Gobekli Tepe su upravo ispred njega, skriveni ispod pročelja na brdu.

U poređenju sa Stonehengeom ovo mjesto je skromno. Nijedan od iskopanih krugova (4 od procijenjenih 20) nije veći od 30 metara u prečniku.  Stubovi oblika „T" kao i dva bloka od pet metara nadvisuju, barem za metar, ostale blokove. Ono što ih čini izuzetnim su izrezbareni reljefi divljih svinja, lisica, lavova, ptica, zmija i škorpiona i njihova starost. Datirani na oko 9500 godina prije naše ere, ovi kameni blokovi su 5500 godina stariji od prvih gradova u Mesopotamiji i 7000 godina stariji od Stonehengea. Zanemarimo točak ili pismo, ljudi koji su ovo izgradili nisu imali čak ni grnčariju niti domaće žito. Živjeli su u selima ali su bili lovci, a ne zemljoradnici.

„Svako je do sada mislio da samo složene, hijerarhijske civilizacije mogu da podignu tako monumentalne objekte i da su te civilizacije nastale s početkom zemljoradnje", govori Ian Hodder, profesor antropoologije na Stanford Univerzitetu koji rukovodi iskopavanjima u Catalhoyuku, najboljoj turskoj neolitskoj lokaciji od 1993.

„Gobekli mijenja sve. Ovaj kompleks je razrađen, složen i datira od prije zemljoradnje. Samo to čini ovu lokaciju jednom od najvažnijih arheoloških nalazišta za dugo vremena."

Pošto je samo dio nalazišta otvoren poslije decenije iskopavanja, važnost Gobekli Tepea njegovim graditeljima ostaje nepoznanica. Neki misle da je to bio centar obreda plodnosti, s dva visoka kamena u centru svakog kruga koji predstavljaju muškarca i ženu. To je teorija koju je turistički odbor u obližnjoj Urfi žustro usvojio.

-Posjetite Rajske  vrtove,  oglašavaju njegove brošure, i vidite Adama i Evu.

Schmidt je skeptičan. On se slaže da Gobekli Tepe može lako biti „ posljednje cvjetanje polunomadskog svijeta kojeg će zemljoradnja uništiti" i ističe da je razlog što je u skoro perfektnom stanju danas to što su ga njegovi graditelji ubrzo zatrpali tonama zemlje, kao da je svijet bogat divljim životinjama izgubio svo značenje.

Međutim, ovo mjesto je je lišeno simbola plodnosti koji su nalaženi na drugim neolitskim lokacijama, a stubovi u formi slova „T" , mada jasno polu-ljudskog oblika, nemaju polne karakteristike.

Bogovi

„Mislim da se ovdje nalazimo licem u lice s najranijim predstavljanjem bogova," govori Schmidt, tapšući jedan od najvećih kamenih blokova.

„Oni nemaju oči, usta, lica. Ali imaju ruke i šake. Oni su stvaraoci.

Po mom mišljenju, ljudi koji su ih izrezbarili su se pitali neka od najvećih pitanja. Šta je univerzum? Zašto smo mi ovdje?"

Kako nema tragova kuća niti grobova blizu blokova? Schmidt vjeruje da je vrh brda bio mjesto hodočašća za zajednice u krugu od oko sto milja. Najviši blokovi su svi okrenuti  jugoistočno, kao da posmatraju ravnice po kojima su raštrkana nalazišta koja po mnogo čemu nisu ništa manje impresivna od Gobekli Tepe.

Na primjer, prošle godine je francuski arheolog radeći na Djade al-Mughara u sjevernoj Siriji otkrio najstariji mural koji je ikada pronađen.

„Dva kvadratna metra geometrijskih oblika u crvenoj, crnoj i bijeloj boji – kao slika Paula Kleea", govori  Eric Coqueugniot s Univerziteta u Lyonu, koji rukovodi iskopavanjem.

Coqueugniot  opisuje Schmidtovu hipotezu da je Gobekli Tepe bio sastajalište za ritual "primamljivom" imajući u vidu njegovu spektakularnu poziciju. Međutim, ispitivanja ovog regiona su tek u začetku.

"Sutra neko može da pronađe nešto još dramatičnije".

Vecihi Ozkaya, direktor iskopavanja u Kortiktepe, 120 milja istočno od Urfa, sumnja da je njegovo otkriće stotina ćupova koje je pronašao od 2001. godine  u stotinama grobova starim 11500 godina takvo nešto. Ali njegovo uzbuđenje ispunjava jednostavni ured  Dicle Univerziteta u Diyarbakiru.

"Pogledajte ovo", reče on, pokazujući na fotografiju izuzetno izrezbarene skulpture koja predstavlja životinju koja liči na pola-čovjeka  pola-lava.

"To je sfinga, načinjena hiljadama godina prije Egipta. Jugoistočna Turska, sjeverna Sirija – ovaj region je bio svjedokom začetka naše civilizacije".

Originalni clanak:

7,000 years older than Stonehenge: the site that stunned archaeologists

Circles of elaborately carved stones from about 9,500BC predate even agriculture

• Nicholas Birch in Istanbul
• The Guardian,
• Wednesday April 23 2008

This article appeared in the Guardian on Wednesday April 23 2008 on p21 of the International section. It was last updated at 00:09 on April 23 2008.

As a child, Klaus Schmidt used to grub around in caves in his native Germany in the hope of finding prehistoric paintings. Thirty years later, a member of the German Archaeological Institute, he found something infinitely more important: a temple complex almost twice as old as anything comparable on the planet.
"This place is a supernova," said Schmidt, standing under a lone tree on a windswept hilltop 35 miles north of Turkey’s border with Syria. "Within a minute of first seeing it I knew I had two choices: go away and tell nobody, or spend the rest of my life working here."
Behind him are the first folds of the Anatolian plateau. Ahead, the Mesopotamian plain, like a dust-coloured sea, stretches south hundreds of miles. The stone circles of Gobekli Tepe are just in front, hidden under the brow of the hill.
Compared with Stonehenge, they are humble affairs. None of the circles excavated (four out of an estimated 20) are more than 30 metres across. T-shaped pillars like the rest, two five-metre stones tower at least a metre above their peers. What makes them remarkable are their carved reliefs of boars, foxes, lions, birds, snakes and scorpions, and their age. Dated at around 9,500BC, these stones are 5,500 years older than the first cities of Mesopotamia, and 7,000 years older than Stonehenge.
Never mind wheels or writing, the people who erected them did not even have pottery or domesticated wheat. They lived in villages. But they were hunters, not farmers.
"Everybody used to think only complex, hierarchical civilisations could build such monumental sites, and that they only came about with the invention of agriculture", said Ian Hodder, a Stanford University professor of anthropology who has directed digs at Catalhoyuk, Turkey’s best known neolithic site, since 1993. "Gobekli changes everything. It’s elaborate, it’s complex and it is pre-agricultural. That alone makes the site one of the most important archaeological finds in a very long time."
With only a fraction of the site opened up after a decade of excavation, Gobekli Tepe’s significance to the people who built it remains unclear. Some think it was the centre of a fertility rite, with the two tall stones at the centre of each circle representing a man and woman. It is a theory the tourist board in nearby Urfa has taken up with alacrity. Visit the Garden of Eden, its brochures trumpet; see Adam and Eve.
Schmidt is sceptical. He agrees Gobekli Tepe may well be "the last flowering of a semi-nomadic world that farming was just about to destroy", and points out that if it is in near perfect condition today, it is because those who built it buried it soon after under tons of soil, as though its wild animal-rich world had lost all meaning.
But the site is devoid of the fertility symbols found at other neolithic sites, and the T-shaped columns, while clearly semi-human, are sexless.

Gods
"I think here we are face to face with the earliest representation of gods," said Schmidt, patting one of the biggest stones. "They have no eyes, no mouths, no faces. But they have arms and they have hands. They are makers.
"In my opinion, the people who carved them were asking themselves the biggest questions of all. What is this universe? Why are we here?"
With no evidence of houses or graves near the stones, Schmidt believes the hilltop was a site of pilgrimage for communities within a radius of roughly a hundred miles. The tallest stones all face south-east, as if scanning plains that are scattered with contemporary sites in many ways no less remarkable than Gobekli Tepe.
Last year, for instance, French archaeologists working at Djade al-Mughara in northern Syria uncovered the oldest mural ever found. "Two square metres of geometric shapes, in red, black and white – like a Paul Klee painting", said Eric Coqueugniot, of the University of Lyon, who is leading the excavation.
Coqueugniot describes Schmidt’s hypothesis that Gobekli Tepe was a meeting point for rituals as "tempting", given its spectacular position. But surveys of the region were still in their infancy. "Tomorrow, somebody might find somewhere even more dramatic."
Vecihi Ozkaya, the director of a dig at Kortiktepe, 120 miles east of Urfa, doubts the thousands of stone pots he has found since 2001 in hundreds of 11,500-year-old graves quite qualify as that. But his excitement fills his austere office at Dicle University in Diyarbakir.
"Look at this", he said, pointing at a photo of an exquisitely carved sculpture showing an animal, half-human, half-lion. "It’s a sphinx, thousands of years before Egypt. South-eastern Turkey, northern Syria – this region saw the wedding night of our civilisation."

http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2008/apr/23/archaeology.turkey

Tekst s engleskog preveo Semir Mehmedovic