Göbekli Tepe

Located on a hilltop near Şanlıurfa in southeastern Turkey, Göbekli Tepe is among the oldest known religious structures on earth, with enclosures dated to roughly 9600 BCE predating pottery, writing, and agriculture. The site consists of circular arrangements of T-shaped limestone pillars carved with reliefs of foxes, boars, birds, and abstract symbols, assembled by hunter-gatherer communities whose organizational capacity has since revised fundamental assumptions about prehistoric society. Ongoing excavations continue to reveal new enclosures beneath the hill.