00:00.75 kinkella Hello and welcome to the pseudo archeology podcast episode 113 I am your host Dr Andrew Kingkella and tonight we will explore the number one most famous tepe of all time. The best of all possible teas's go Beckley Tepe okay so here we are going to do an exploration of Gobeckli Tepe but before we do that I have to do something my friends. Ah, got to talk yet again about my mail because I got a new one this week just came in like two days ago and well it was a long very involved email that. 00:56.85 kinkella Had its ups and downs and twists and turns and ultimately its central theme was about how bad I suck now this listener hated me so badly that he decided to unfollow. The entire network now I'm not just talking my little humble podcast The Pseudo Archeology Podcast oh no no no I am part of the archeological podcast network right? and he had in his feed the entire network and he hated me so bad. That he has informed us that he is going to unfollow the entire network just because of my show now I'm pretty sure that he has yet to figure out that well you can follow 1 show at a time. And I would gingerly recommend to follow all the shows except mine. But ah as he has unfollowed this network I'm guessing. He'll never hear this. In fact, he what as he talked about my show. And allow me to quote that he quote cannot just follow 1 show just one show the world needs less kinkela and his arrogant shortsighted close minded dogmatic rhetoric. 02:33.45 kinkella Man that sounds pretty negative I do see earlier in his very long drawn out explanation of truly how bad of a person I am that I remind him of the old guard victorian elites. Now I don't really see that comparison but just for him I believe I will talk about this for a moment as a victorian elite and I must say as I look at this I remember that my last show. Well. It was on ancient lizard people. Ancient lizard people. It was and that's the one that he decided to say that I was arrogant and in fact I was because lizard people. Well. There is no such thing and I said it in that way shortsighted I am here to tell you that I do not need long sight. My friend shortsighted is good enough sight to know that there are no such thing as lizard people. I am close-minded on that. Yes, indeed I am dogmatic and my rhetoric is pure and clean because you know what my friends there is no such thing as Godam Lizard people 03:56.47 kinkella Too much I know but you're really going to send this after the lizard people episode. That's the one where you want to hear the other side. The. The pro lizard people side but you know what's funny timing is a crazy thing because that same night that I got this this email from this listener and actually it ended off. Comparing me to Donald Trump as well and you know I I guess I'm too close minded to see that one too but that same night I got an email from an old student of mine a student who I think I had maybe seven years ago or so and she. Emailed me and talked about how much she liked the show and how much it reminded her of like class and just kind of good times in life. You know and I forget that sometimes that a show like this can. Really deliver just some basic enjoyment to people you know and if I've done that that is the precise and exact thing that I want to do for you guys. You know I just I want us to have a little fun. 05:25.94 kinkella In the darkness. You know what I mean and I hope this does lift people up like that you know and she ended by saying quote. Thank you for being awesome and. I'm telling you man it chokes me up. It's so nice. So when I get emails like the first one I talked about all I have to do is think about emails like the second one I talked about and. Hey man the first one just goes away in a puff of smoke. So go Beck Lee tap a what is this gobeck lee tepe place that we've heard so much about and this is a funny one because. You hear this one come up a lot and it has such the sort of unique name Gobeckley Tepe that you remember it. It kind of sticks in but you don't quite know what it is you just you know what have we heard either I mean some of us. Maybe we're only hearing this for the first time. Um. Or maybe you've heard that there's like this place and it sort of conjures in your mind an image of like an old archeology site and it's it's in the near east right? it's in it's in turkey actually but you think of it as this site in the desert and it has big stone pillars that are carved. 07:00.72 kinkella You know that that might be the image in your brain and the third thing might be that it's some mysterious site right? that it that it doesn't fit with what modern archeology says right? You you hear that a lot tied with this thing like somehow something about gobeli tepe. Disproves modern archeology right? It has key information there that that sort of archeologists don't want you to know because it it ruins our our overall thesis on how the ancient world works and I don't fault you for. Hearing any of those things I first heard about gobeckli tepe I want to say oh between fifteen and twenty years ago and it was interesting because it was a site that you just never heard of at all and then it made like a big splash in the news you know, go Beckley Tepe found and it was this idea that it was really really old. You know. And it was for its age really advanced in certain ways. So what are the facts there right? What? what? What is the background to this so. The setup is first just so we we know the word tepe means hill. So there are other sites with that last word tepe in it and in fact I think it's ah it's a version of the word tell. Um, which is something you hear about in archeology a lot. The word tell comes in especially when you're dealing with old world archeology like this at tell. 08:36.62 kinkella Is a human constructed mound that is there just because there have been maybe a village or this kind of thing that has been built there again and again and again over thousands of years so you have and natural mounds start to build up as foundations are made and structures are made and then they fall down and you build new ones on it and when that happens over thousands of years you get this level that starts to get higher so you get when you see places like this they are built on sort of a fake. Mountain or fake hill I should say that's more correct with the structures on top. It's just because hey man a good place for settlement tends to remain a good place over thousands of years so people will tend to build in the same spot. So how old is Gobeckley Tepe well it dates to. And between about 9508000 Bc so this is a ten thousand plus year old site. That's that's old. You know that's that's pretty awesome. That's that's great and what it is. it's it's a collection of kind of circular. Um, I'd say circular enclosures and I believe there's 6 of them. Don't quote me on that. But you think of these sort of circular enclosures again, the tops are are long off so you can sort of see them. They're open to the air. 10:07.37 kinkella These circular enclosures with with central pillars these central stone pillars and those stone pillars are quite large I want to say they're like fifteen feet tall or in that vicinity and they're T-s Shapeped like capital t shaped so they're straight and then they have kind of a crossbeam across them. But of course all made out of stone and these. Um, stone pillars or we can also call them megaliths that word megalith is used a lot in archeology megalith just means big stone a place like Stonehenge is also a megalithic structure and as we'll see stonehenge has some very very basic similarities to this site. Although it's very different in time stonehenge is like four and a half thousand years old this is like 10000 years old so it's it's very different in terms of time and place but some of the generalities are similar and the stone pillars themselves are carved right? They're decorated with what we would call anmor if. Anthropmorphic it's anthropomorphic anthropomorphic figures anthropomorphic means humanish. The word anthrop means human right? like an anthropology so these anthropomorphic figures are things like ah. You'll see like vultures and scorpions and and and things like this like really really cool, interesting creatures with ah with a humanish tinge to them and this is again in sort of this dry sparse landscape often. 11:38.95 kinkella Go beckley tepe will be called the first monumental architecture right? version 1.0 the earliest one that we have so far found in terms of when human beings actually did this when they came together for the first time. And made something like this so in terms of its importance in human history. It's huge, right? and just the place itself really interesting. So you you envision in your mind on sort of a low rise like a little low hill. There's like these 6 circular enclosures with central stone pillars in them all kind of generally together kind of mushed together on top of this hill or this tepe or this tell right? So this is. And important place in that ten thousand year ago world now. That seems pretty straightforward. Okay, it's a central location. Maybe it was used for ritual the archeologists classic go to when you're a bit unsure ritual structure. But what makes it a little odd at first glance is that it's. 13:03.34 kinkella Ah structure made of these big stones that are going to weigh you know several tons each but it's made during a time when hunter gatherers are thought to have still really kind of ruled the world right before this idea of. Complex civilizations this sort of thing. So. At first glance, it just seems to not make sense right? What there's a complex structure there in a time of Hunter Gatherers no No no such a thing could not happen. But of course it can happen. And did happen now. How did this happen? Well tune back in after the break and find out.