Conny Waters – AncientPages.com – In a region regularly visited by the Sumerians, Akkadians, Babylonians, Hittites, Assyrians, Romans, Seljuks, and Ottomans, among others, archaeologists have unearthed remarkable structures that open a new page in our history books.
At a site known as Boncuklu Tarla (Beaded Field) in Turkey, archaeologists have discovered temples that are much older than the famous Göbekli Tepe.
Göbekli Tepe. Credit: Göbekli Tepe Project
The magnificent megaliths and T-shaped pillars, some of which are up to 5.50 meters tall at Göbekli Tepe have long fascinated scientists and many consider the site to be home of the world's oldest temple. Today, we know this is not true.
The latest archaeological discovery at Boncuklu Tarla located about 300 kilometers from Göbekli Tepe shows ancient people built temples much longer than previously assumed.
The Boncuklu Tarla temples back to the Neolithic period and are 1,000 years older than the religious complex at Göbekli Tepe.
Hurriyet Daily News reports, “Boncuklu Tarla was discovered in 2008 during a field survey. Its first excavations started in 2012.
Houses with quarry stone walls and stiffened clay floors from the Aceramic Neolithic Age, which date back to 10,000 B.C. and 7,000 B.C., were found during the excavations at the site in Dargeçit.
The latest archeologic excavations in southeastern Turkey discovered an ancient site older than Göbeklitepe, known as the oldest temple in the world, according to a Turkish university rector. Credit: Hurriyet Daily News
Along with thousands of beads used in ornaments, obsidian or flint blades, waste from ornament making and stone chipping tools were found at the site.
The tools include blades, gimlets, arrowheads and microliths.”
See also:
1,500-Year-Old Ancient Lamps Unearthed In Zerzevan Castle In Southeast Turkey
8,000-Year-Old T-Shaped, Four-Sided Structure With Pyramidion – Uncovered in Turkey
Almost 3,000 Year-Old Burial Site Of Urartian Royals Discovered In Turkey’s Famous Van
İbrahim Özcoşar, the rector of Mardin Artuklu University, told the state-run Anadolu Agency that “it is possible to consider this as a finding that prove the first settlers [in the area] were believers.”
This area is important in terms of being one of the first settled areas of humanity and shows that the first people to have settled here were believers,” he added, pointing to similar discoveries in Göbeklitepe and Boncuklu Tarla.
Credit: artukluhaber.net
Boncuklu Tarla is estimated to be around 12,000 years old and in addition to many houses and dwellings, archaeologists unearthed “several special structures which we can call temples and special buildings.”
See also: More Archaeology News
“This is a new key point to inform us on many topics such as how the [people] in northern Mesopotamia and upper Tigris began to settle, how the transition from hunter-gatherer life to food production happened and how cultural and religious structures changed,” Ergül Kodaş, an archaeologist at Mardin Artuklu University and advisor to the excavation area said.
During excavations, various historical artifacts, including a 65-centimeter-long human statue dating back 12,000 years, have also been discovered.
Written by Conny Waters - AncientPages.com Staff Writer
