Myths About Göbekli Tepe, the Oldest Temple in the World, Being a Flowering Astronomical Observatory

Göbekli Tepe is incredibly fascinating because it was constructed thousands of years before anything else of comparable size that we are aware of. There is a lot of conjecture regarding its function, and as Astronomy.com points out, a lot of these suggest it fulfilled an astronomical purpose. These theories range from the implausible to the insane.

The construction of Göbekli Tepe in Turkey occurred just as the earth was emerging from the previous Ice Age. Even more astonishingly, pottery and agriculture may not have even existed at all. However, semi-nomadic humans created a stone structure that is still standing today, albeit hidden, and would have astounded their descendants thousands of years ago.

Archaeologists believe that the approximately 12,000-year-old monument served religious reasons, even though we know very little about the people who built it. This is because the site has enough traits in common with more modern temples. The type of religion practiced there is unknown, but based on the numerous animal carvings on the enormous stones, it appears the builders considered these to be very important.

Before light pollution and multiple channels of evening entertainment, people had a much closer relationship with the night sky than the majority of us do now. Stonehenge and several other younger Neolithic sites were constructed so that they would coincide with the sun's rising on significant occasions. Therefore, the notion that a temple constructed on a mountainside thousands of years ago would have been utilized for, and possibly designed to aid in, sky research is not at all impossible.

Nevertheless, Göbekli Tepe's contours have not been found to have any solar or lunar significance. Rather, although there is disagreement on which stars are centered, attempts have been made to connect their orientation to the stars. While others have recommended Orion or Cygnus, Politecnico di Milano professor Giulio Magli suggests aligning with Sirius.

Nevertheless, it is impossible to validate or refute the theory. Because of the Earth's precession, the locations of individual stars at different times of the year fluctuate over millennia. We don't know enough about the exact time Göbekli Tepe was constructed to determine where Sirius or any other star was at that point.

A hypothesis that is both more thrilling and scientifically questionable suggests that the temple captures the impact of a comet that caused the Younger Dryas event, which caused a significant global cooling that lasted for approximately a millennium. While the Younger Dryas is unquestionably true, the theory that it could have been caused by a comet is one of the most hotly contested in several scientific domains, enough to incite even the most composed people to passionate outbursts.

The minority that maintains that the event is recorded at Göbekli Tepe includes even cometary impact theory proponents. Still, a group at the University of Edinburgh asserts that the etchings on one area of the Temple dubbed the Vulture Stone, show a sharp increase in comets. Even more, they assert that they can identify constellations based on the stars as they were approximately 13,000 years ago, based on the depictions of those stars on the Vulture stone.

If accurate, this would date the events accurately and support the comet-Younger Dryas scenario. It would also suggest that the architects of Göbekli Tepe had extraordinary awareness of contemporary affairs. Still, archaeologists visiting the site voiced doubts right away. It doesn't appear like that has altered. A small number of peer-reviewed papers mention the work; however, these are generally incidental connections to other elements of the cometary impact theory, unless the works were written by the original authors. There is not enough evidence for archaeologists to investigate further.

The cometary disaster The Göbekli Tepe idea may be unconventional, but it shows a possible overabundance of reverence for the architects. Not so for some who claim the location was constructed with the assistance of a highly developed race. Many of the largest ancient structures in the world have a similar tale to tell. Based on our innate curiosity about how such objects could have been constructed with such primitive technology, it extrapolates the idea that more sophisticated individuals—who left no clear evidence—must have been involved.

The concept is especially well-liked when the remarkable locations are outside of Europe, indicating that the builders were not Caucasian. Amazing structures constructed by ancient peoples serve as a potent refutation of the notion that their contemporary descendants are less intelligent. This leads to a haste to explain such constructions away as the creation of Atlantans, aliens, or even early Masons (yes, really).

The claim that Göbekli Tepe is "the world's oldest" unites those who refer to it as an observatory, regardless of the veracity of their theories. Although there aren't any major temples or other ancient structures that we are aware of, the same might not apply to observatories. Although their origin cannot be properly dated, stones laid by Indigenous Australians appear to align with the Sun at the solstices and may be as old as 14,000 years. It might have trouble surpassing Göbekli Tepe, even if it were used to track the sky.