The motorway to Urfa seemed almost unreal after the dusty desert road but we soon left it and headed for Göbeklitepe, a neolithic site dating from the 10th-8th millennium BC.
It was a bit late and we were afraid that it would be closed but at the entrance we discovered that their opening hours were more than lax: the site is open from sunrise to sunset, whatever that means. I'm sorry I didn't take a picture of the sign. The site is in a strategic place, well above the surrounding hills and according to Klaus Schmidt, the German archaeologist who discovered and excavated it, is a compound of early neolithic sanctuaries. Geophysical surveys say that there are about 200 pillars arranged in 20 circles. Each of them weights 20 tons and is about 6 m high, and most of them still lie beneath the earth. Göbeklitepe is similar to Stonehenge but much larger. Some of the pillars are decorated with sculptures: birds, lizards, a fox...
It is said that they date from the time when hunter-gatherers settled. But how did these hunter-gatherers carry those pillars up there? How did they erect them? Those who carved them were obviously not beginners, where have they learnt and developed their skills?
We were the only visitors, everything was calm and quiet, we walked around in the rays of the setting sun. Klaus Schmidt died only a few days after we returned from Turkey, so a new person will be appointed to continue his work. I would like to return there in 10-15 years to see it again but I'm afraid that it will be different: there will be a museum with toilets, a souvenir shop and cafeteria, with many buses in front and loads of tourists inside. And the opening hours will not be from sunrise to sunset.
We were hungry after such a long day but it was ramazan and everything was either closed or only served tea. We finally found a lokanta on the side of the road where we had our first and last meal that day, and the guys washed our car. It was fun for my son, he got all wet and enjoyed it very much.
- to be continued -
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