First, let’s study the thesis that lends credence to this story. If we do consider Gobekli Tepe as allegorical to the move from hunting to farming, then the Eden story describes how this move from a carefree life of picking fruit at leisure to a tougher one of ploughing seed and reaping crop.

This change took place geographically too—in Kurdish Turkey where the move to agriculture began. Here, einkorn wheat, a predecessor strain of cereal, was genetically linked to Gobekli. And to continue in the same strain of domestication, pigs were tamed for the first time, about 100 km in Cayonu.

Turkey also has Biblical links, which ties in very neatly with the Garden of Eden story. According to Kurdish Muslims, the town of Urfa or Sanliurfa, is the Old Testament’s city of Ur or Ur Kasdim, as mentioned in the Book of Genesis as Abraham’s birthplace.

Another small town, Harran, is also mentioned in the Genesis—once for being the town that Adam and Eve came to after being expelled from the Garden of Eden. And, it was a halt for Terah, Abraham, Lot, and Abraham’s wife Sarai on their way from Ur to Canaan.

Topographically too, Gobekli Tepe matches perfectly with the Garden of Eden. In the Bible, there are passages that describe rivers coursing their way from Paradise. In reality, Gobekli Tepe is part of a fertile arc that shares space between two rivers—the Tigris and the Euphrates. Another favorable comparison is that the Bible mentions that Eden is surrounded by beautiful mountains, much like Gobekli being surrounded by the Taurus Mountains.

The Garden of Eden and Gobekli Architecture: The sheer presence of this site proves that hunter-gatherers of this area were capable of handling and dealing with complex art and a structured religion, something never done before.

After leading such good lives, why did they bury their temple in Eden? Perhaps, says Schmidt, coming together to pray meant feeding many more people, something they couldn’t do, so took to growing wild grass. However, this practice put undue pressure on the soil, causing trees to be axed and a lot of game displaced. Perfect Paradise, therefore, became a barren land. This occurred at 8,000 BC when the temple was already buried.

At the time that they took to agriculture from hunting, their skeletons reduced in size as their eating habits deteriorated. They were less healthy as now they had to eat a poor diet and physical exhaustion. This happened in the Fertile Crescent, the cradle of all agriculture.

Just as their lifestyles changed, so also did their ecology. This soon became barren and arid, something revealed on Gobekli’s stone carvings. In the Garden of Eden, as in Gobekli, there was lots of game, river fish and wildfowl, lush greenery and orchards, like the Kurdish desert about 10,000 years ago.

But man in his eagerness to ‘progress,’ changed not just the landscape but the climate too until the land was unproductive. So, paradise was non-existent, with Adam being forced out of his natural home “to till the earth from whence he was taken.”

Comparison between Eden and Gebekli: There are a number of parallels between Gebekli and the Garden of Eden. These are:

• The Book of Genesis states that Eden is located in western Assyria. This is where Gobekli is located.
• Eden is said to be by the banks of four rivers, two of which are he Tigris and Euphrates. In reality, Gobekli is situated between both these rivers.
• Eden comes from the word in Sumerian language meaning ‘plain.’ Gobekli is situated in the Harran plains.

In the light of the above, the magnificent Gobekli Tepe is really a temple in Eden which was built by our ancestors who had enough time to cultivate the arts, complex rituals and architecture before agricultural problems played havoc with their comfortable and beautiful lives in perfect Paradise.

Ancient Urfa: In fact, Urfa has a lot to offer. The legendary Pool of Sacred Fish (Balikligöl) where Nimrod threw the Biblical Abraham into the fire is a must-see. In the courtyard of Halil-ur-Rahman’s mosque is the pool, built in 1211 by the Ayyubids, surrounded by beautiful gardens. The courtyard is very serene and the legend goes that if you see a white fish, you’re sure to go to heaven.

Prehistoric Göbekli Tepe: Barely six miles from Urfa is the prehistoric and most magnificent temple complex site, Göbekli Tepe or Pot Belly Hill. Situated in southeastern Turkey, this ancient city is home to one of history’s most amazing discoveries—where 12,000-year-old large carved stones were crafted by the local prehistoric people to make a temple. And these were not people who had developed tools for their trade nor had they discovered pottery.

This megalithic complex—Göbekli Tepe—is much older than Stonehenge by a whopping 6,000 years. Schmidt, a German archaeologist who has been excavating the area, is sure that this is the world’s oldest temple since civilization. The complex is set in circles and has pillars that are partially excavated.

Each ring or circular shape has two large central T-shaped pillars, about 16 feet high, with carvings of vultures, scorpions, foxes and lions. This is not the only element of religion here at Göbekli Tepe. This place is also known to be the birthplace of two Bibical characters—Abraham and Job.

It’s wonderful to be at the world’s first ever manmade holy place. From here, at a height of over 1,000 feet above the valley, you’d be looking at the tip of what’s called the Fertile Crescent. This is a tip of the very fertile area ranging from present-day Persian Gulf to Lebanon, Jordan, Israel and Egypt.

Neolithic Nevalı Çori: Very near Urfa is another early Neolithic settlement, Nevalı Çori, situated on the middle Euphrates, Şanlıurfa province, eastern Turkey. The people here are located at 490 meters above sea level at the foothills of the Taurus mountains, on both banks of a tributary of the Euphrates, the Kantara stream.

It is home to some of the most ancient monuments and temples. Along with Göbekli Tepe, it has dramatically changed our understanding of the Eurasian Neolithic Age. The Temple of Nevali Çori boasts having had a Neolithic settlement in 8000 BC, which now lies buried below the Ataturk Dam waters, though some relics can be seen above the watermark. Obviously, this too is worth a visit, especially for history buffs.

The temple here is 16 meters long and had 12 T-shaped stone pillars, each measuring 3 meters. They were engraved with etchings of human hands. The construction style is similar to the temples of Göbekli Tepe, about 20km away and to the ones in Malta, though 4000 years younger.

The Harran Plain: Again in the province of Sanliurfa is another site, the Harran Plain, which spans an area of 80,000 sq. meters. Near the Syrian border, 44 km southeast of Urfa, lies this prehistoric town. In its heyday, this was an important Assyrian city which controlled the point that linked Damascus to the highway linking Nineveh and Carchemish. Assyrian inscriptions have several mentions of this city under different names, one of them being Harranu.

In Biblical terms, it was called the Garden of Eden, from where Adam and Eve were banished for eating the forbidden fruit. This is a manmade mound, located on the top of the plain, measuring 300 meters in diameter and 15 meters in height. Another Biblical reference is its pseudonym, the City of prophets,’ since it is believed that the Biblical prophets Abraham, Job, Elijah and Jacob lived in the Harran Plain.

Apart from its impressive history, it is also known for its beehive houses which are nothing more than mud-baked huts. Mud keeps the temperature constant throughout the year. But it will always be remembered for being a contemporary of Göbekli Tepe.

12,000 years old and historical: Take the Gobekli Tepe temple complex or the Pot Belly Hill. Called so because the hill on which it was built had a soft bulged out look, something like a pot belly. Archaeologists put down the age of this magnificent temple, Pot Belly Hill, at 12,000 years. This means it preceded the building of the Great Pyramid by 7,000 years and Stonehenge by 6,000 years.

Because of these landmark distinctions, it is the oldest prehistoric structure discovered. Besides, it also came before the development of structured human societies like villages, human societies, agriculture, industry and the use of pottery.

Location of Pot Belly Hill: Situated in southeastern Turkey, about 15 km from the town of Urfa, it has forested mountains to the north. To the south lies the Syrian border and ahead of it are ancient Mesopotamia and the Fertile Crescent, the fecund spot that is known as the cradle of civilizations. In the east are the Biblical Harran plains and to the west, 300 miles away, is the oldest known Neolithic village, Çatalhöyük.

At the topmost tip of the Fertile Crescent lies Göbekli Tepe. This crescent area is a highly productive piece of land, situated on shoulder of forests and plains. Being in the midst of forests meant having access to hunting prey for food—something the people must have done. It also meant that gazelles and migratory birds could be seen here.

Wheat was first sown here at a mountain near Pot Belly Hill. In the same area, animal husbandry was also begun in about 8000 B.C. After this, cattle were tamed in 6500 B.C., after which pottery followed. These discoveries were then taken to Çatalhöyük, 300 miles to the west and adapted there.

What makes it a world-renowned site? In 1995, Schmidt, a German archaeologist, first excavated this site and over the decades found that what was buried here under the stone fragments of this site was in fact a huge and developed temple complex, replete as a ceremonial site, which was similar to the ‘Rome of the Ice Age.’ This huge and meticulously built temple was built by hunters-gatherers of the area that camped there and killed game for food.

Even today, the Gobekli Tepe temple is of great significance to Turkey and to the rest of the world because it is the first historical site where humanity gave itself a giant leap towards urban life.

Pot Belly Hill is constructed in circles, with the largest circle being 27.4 meters in diameter and each pillar being a maximum of 5.2 meters high. The amazing thing about this site is that when excavated, its stones were found intact and erect, with simple pillar etchings. These temples prove that mankind sprang from its 14,000 year-old reign of being hunters and gatherers to people with spiritual imagery and a knowledge of logistics, economics and politics.

The carvings on their pillars are filled with reptiles and insects such as scorpions, vultures, snakes, spiders and three-fanged monsters, apart from human forms. Perhaps they practiced a sky burial by exposing their dead to the elements, in the absence of human bones.

Besides, there is no sign of water here, and everything had to be brought in from elsewhere. So, this temple site could not be called a settlement or village. Since the temple came before any sign of a village, Schmidt concludes that here man’s first house was his temple, after which came the city.

Their worship and rituals came to an end in 8000 B.C. when all of Pot Belly Hill was buried abruptly. It was in disuse for the past 1000 years, proved by the fact that later temple circles were greatly diminished in size. This marked the end of this historic civilization.

But where one civilization ended, another more settled one arose. Here, hunters were replaced by farmers and shepherds with modern ways of living and worshipping. However, the temple complex was not abandoned but ruined by nature’s forces and lay buried under 300-500 cubic meters of soil.

It was built around 10,000–9,000 BC, while Stonehenge was built in about 2,000–2,500 BC. Before Gobekli Tepe could be discovered, the oldest megalithic temple complex was in Malta, built in about 3,500BC.

In another part of the world around this time, Plato’s Atlantis civilization had already disappeared. Built 5,000 years before the oldest civilization, Sumer is not far south from Göbekli Tepe along the route of the River Euphrates and off Taurus Mountain’s highlands in Turkey.

In 1964, in an American survey, Gobekli Tepe was recognized as containing Byzantine cemetery. In 1994, archaeologist Klaus Schmidt discovered from the fragments of stone on the surface that the site was indeed prehistoric.

Location of Göbekli Tepe: It is situated at the northernmost tip of a fecund land called Fertile Crescent. Set amid vast forestland, plains and plenty of gazelles and birds, wheat was first sown at a nearby mountain some centuries after Pot Belly Hill was discovered. Pigs were first domesticated nearby in about 8000 B.C. Cattle followed latter in about 6500 B.C .and later, pottery. From here, these discoveries were taken to nearby Çatalhöyük, the oldest recorded Neolithic village, situated over 480 km to the west.

Significance of Göbekli Tepe: This is a historical marvel, an architectural wonder and the most fantastic archaeological discovery of our times since it makes us see a very important stage of the development of ancient human communities differently.

We now know that hunters and gatherers of the times, along with farmers, put together this monumental temple complex before the city was developed. Since then, Göbekli Tepe is civilization’s oldest site to the extent that it came into existence even before human settlements did.

Building Göbekli Tepe: Who built such a large temple and how? Schmidt opines that groups of hunters gathered at the temple site while the construction was underway, lived in animal hide tents and killed game for food. This fact is supported by the many flint arrowheads found near the temple and suggests the temple complex’s age.

It is absolutely amazing to believe that early Neolithic hunters could have the vision to build something so elaborate. It also changes the presumption that agriculture came before settled communities and that arts, architecture and society depended on the food sources available from farming. Gobekli Tepe is proof of the fact that hunters here were far more advanced than we imagine.

Reasons to build: The answer to this, says Schmidt, lies in the fact that it was built as a prayer centre and a funeral ground. Evidence of this lies in the human bones found in the soil which were put in the open recesses near the stones. The fact that Gobekli Tepe was entirely religious in purpose is borne out by the fact that it has several rock carvings on its stones which are ritualistic.

Schmidt’s discovered a circular complex with a diameter of 27.4 meters. In fact, the name Pot Belly Hill is derived from its round shape of hill atop the temple complex. So far, Schmidt and his team have discovered 25 pillars containing abstract carvings and symbols, done simply and effectively. They also have bas-reliefs of several animals such as wild boar, cattle, leopards, foxes and lions, insects, reptiles and birds.

Faceless human forms can also be seen on some T-shaped pillars, including human arms, shoulders, fingers and elbows. These human forms refer to deities similar to humans or worship of ancestors.

After over a decade of excavating, Schmidt discovered that Pot Belly Hill was a ceremonial site or a ‘Rome of the Ice Age.’ Here, people congregated to build the temple. The temple had polished stone circles with carvings and terrazzo flooring and double benches.

Vanishing civilization: Nobody could discover why, but eventually, Göbekli Tepe or Pot Belly Hill lost its prime position in the eighth millennium BC. With the coming of agriculture and animal husbandry, it lost its earlier significance and was destroyed by natural calamities and buried under 300-500 cubic meters of soil.