Göbekli Tepe
Imagine everything we were taught in school about human civilization was wrong. All the events we were told that led to our civilization and society as we know it were so far off base that it is almost laughable. Now stop imagining, we figured out over a decade ago that we know nothing about the formation of our civilization or its true history, we simply have yet to discover our true history and have been unable to rewrite the history books.

First it is important to remove the myth from the fact of what is probably the greatest archaeological discovery of our lifetime. The complex that was discovered does contain sculptures of many species of animals, many of them not indigenous to that area. The area is relatively close to Mount Ararat, which many biblical scholars believe to be the resting place of Noah's Ark. But, the similarities between the Ark and Göbekli Tepe end there. Many "Ancient Astronaut" theorists would like to link this to an ancient alien race or the fabled Atlantis, again, it's fun to think about, but no evidence that those theories are even remotely correct on their own, much less in relation to Göbekli Tepe, has ever been located.


Göbekli Tepe turns our understanding of human history upside down. We were taught that we were a hunter-gatherer people until about five thousand years ago when Sumer was formed. Sumer was the first known civilization that led to our current idea of society. Göbekli Tepe is over two times as old as Sumer, and had technological abilities that leaves modern engineers at a loss for words. The stone cutting ability was done with such precision and used such massive blocks that we simply cannot fully explain how it was done yet.


This site was found by accident by a goat herder who stumbled on a stone and started digging in 1995. It led to an excavation that archaeologists are saying will not even be 10% complete in our lifetime.

So we have a massive ritual site. A society over two times as old as the oldest we were aware of. A society that had engineering and social abilities we can't explain fully yet. These are our ancestors who we know nothing about. Here is the best part, Göbekli Tepe was buried on purpose by the people who built it. It was not lost in time, it was not hidden by weather and sand. Our ancestors built this amazing temple, something we still cannot fathom fully, and at some point 11000 years ago they purposely buried it, methodically covering it with sand in what seems to be an attempt to preserve the site. Then they vanished, at least we cannot find signs of where they went yet.

Facts:

1. Humanity was accomplishing amazing feats in engineering and social function 6000 years before we thought we even lived in social groups.

2. A huge temple was built and methodically covered and it will take us 60 years to uncover it fully.

3. We are not as advanced as we would like to think, sadly this site is proof that we were at one point capable of many of the things we currently are capable of, but for some reason we have no record available to us besides this purposely buried site.

4. It is pretty fucking amazing to think about.