Do these stones mark the site of the Garden of Eden?

Jeremiah Jones said:

Well from my reading of the article it seems it was constructed by one of the first ever groups of people to come together to form a social unit, for the purposes of farming, as such a monument couldn't have been constructed by one man. The carvings on the monument depict an 'Eden like' environment, which they were obviously quite fond of, so by coming together as a group, to build this monument, while enaging in argriculture they destroyed what they worshipped, the Eden like landscape around them. So for them to build the monument the celebrate the landscape, they had to form a collective unit, which itself destroyed the landscape. Which you have to admit it beyond ironic

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The way I read the article is that the site was supposedly built by hunter-gatherer societies which would be more contemporaneous with the time period.

One of the enduring anthropological mysteries of all time (as the article touches on) is why humans shifted from the relative easy and stable life of the hunter-gatherer to the more grueling, demanding and (at the time) uncertain agricultural lifestyle. There are many, many hypotheses and the truth is probably a combination of a number of factors.

Hunting and gathering was an easy lifestyle which afforded people a great deal of leisure time. It seems more logical to me, and the article implies, that the site was more likely built by h-g folks rather than farmers, indicating a level of sophistication far beyond what we would expect from that simple lifestyle with very basic social groups.

The rise in agriculture gradually gave way to more complex social groups and economic systems over a long period of time.

What surprises me most about this find is its relative uniqueness. Doing a little cursory reading on line, I discovered that there is a similar site called Nevali Cori which is also in Turkey and dates from about the same period and is similarly sophisticated in its construction.

These discoveries really do fundamentally change our perception of what we might have considered simple and unsophisticated early communities.

But it brings me back to a conversation I remember from one of my anthro/archeo classes from college. While discussing the evolution of tool making amongst early man, one student asked something like "Well, how did they KNOW to make tools like that."

The professor's wry answer was that they had "a LOT of free time on their hands." So, of course, over hundreds, thousands and tens of thousands of years, you'd get pretty good at banging rocks together to make your life easier, since no one had iPods or internet.

Maybe now we know what those hunter-gatherers did with all their spare time now, besides making stone tools, of course.

Yeah I understand the supposition that hunter gatherers built it, but how could hunter gatherers of the number needed for such an undertaking sustain them selves through foraging long enough to build such a structure? With so many people involved, foraging would have been difficult for all of them.. Maybe temples like this provided the necessity for developing a sustainable system that would allow them to remain together to worship what ever it is they worshiped.

Maybe not though. Ah Archaeological guess work, I miss it so

Ignoring the Creationists for a moment, this was a fascinating read. I was sceptical when I first saw that it was the Daily Mail, and even more so the Daily Mail's website, not to mention that the bloke writing it plugged his own book twice and ended with where to buy it. Nevertheless, it was very interesting.

10,000BC? That's hard to contemplate! When was the Minoan civilisation supposed to have been destroyed, so I get some grip on the date?

I love the idea that it was buried on purpose, although imagining that it was buried because it had inspired acts of inhumanity, not to mention it being a Temple of the Garden of Eden, is a bit of a stretch in my opinion. It sounds like the work of someone with an overactive imagination, like a novelist... when was his book out again?

Still, I'm not taking anything away from the importance of the site itself. If the carbon dating is correct, and so too are the scans showing potentially hundreds of these stones, this is a massively important discovery.

The Tingler said:

Ignoring the Creationists for a moment, this was a fascinating read. I was sceptical when I first saw that it was the Daily Mail, and even more so the Daily Mail's website, not to mention that the bloke writing it plugged his own book twice and ended with where to buy it. Nevertheless, it was very interesting.

10,000BC? That's hard to contemplate! When was the Minoan civilisation supposed to have been destroyed, so I get some grip on the date?

I love the idea that it was buried on purpose, although imagining that it was buried because it had inspired acts of inhumanity, not to mention it being a Temple of the Garden of Eden, is a bit of a stretch in my opinion. It sounds like the work of someone with an overactive imagination, like a novelist... when was his book out again?

Still, I'm not taking anything away from the importance of the site itself. If the carbon dating is correct, and so too are the scans showing potentially hundreds of these stones, this is a massively important discovery.

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I agree. Fanciful theories aside, it is an extraordinarily significant find.

But if it was, in fact, buried intentionally, it's almost hard not to try to come up with some crazy explanation for why.

In any event, fascinating, fascinating stuff....

as a creationist...I will whole heartedly agree...very fascinating. I love this sort of story. It shows us how little we really know about anything. And piecing together the puzzle is so important.

Thira exploded about 1600BC which led to the fall of Minoan civilisation.. So yeah, Looooong time before that!

Jeremiah Jones said:

Yes Lance, but what would Adam want with a starship?

But seriously guys, I expected more in depth discussion then this, this is a find of great archaeological significance, and ye're just talking about weather or not you believe in a metephor the article uses. Its like a discussion about a giant shark referred to by the media as 'jaws' where the discussion consists mainly of 'yeah but jaws was killed in the movie'

Think about it, the oldest temple structure known... thousands of years older then anything else... a temple whose construction doomed that which it represented...

I for one don't believe in Eden, I did once upon a time. Though that doesn't mean I disrespect people who do. I respect belief, even if I don't share it. But this isn't about the Bible, its about Archaeology

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im no archaeologist so correct me if im wrong. but this article reminds me of one of the alternative dates for the great sphinx. isn't it around the same time period?

I'm sorry for digging up (pun intended) this rather old thread, but it came to my intention only now.

The site at the Göbekli Tepe is a sensational site, no question - it's highly unusual to find architecture that early and - more important - erected by gather-hunterer groups.
The article mentioned above implies that the excavation leader Prof Schmidt (my boss, since I work in this project too) considers these "temples" as the site of the biblical "Eden". This is NOT true, the quote is just wrong made up by the journalist who by the way just wants to advertise a novel on the place he wrote (rather "Dan Bown-esque"). The excavation team and the research institution we are working at distance themselves from the whole thesis of this article (also see here).

The dating is backed by radiocarbon dates and the so called "typological method" of silex tools, by the way.

Jens said:

I'm sorry for digging up (pun intended) this rather old thread, but it came to my intention only now.

The site at the Göbekli Tepe is a sensational site, no question - it's highly unusual to find architecture that early and - more important - erected by gather-hunterer groups.
The article mentioned above implies that the excavation leader Prof Schmidt (my boss, since I work in this project too) considers these "temples" as the site of the biblical "Eden". This is NOT true, the quote is just wrong made up by the journalist who by the way just wants to advertise a novel on the place he wrote (rather "Dan Bown-esque"). The excavation team and the research institution we are working at distance themselves from the whole thesis of this article (also see here).

The dating is backed by radiocarbon dates and the so called "typological method" of silex tools, by the way.

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Hey, thanks very much for posting. That's wonderful that you are working on this extraordinary project. Feel free to share any information or details or experiences, we'd love to hear them.

In my reading of the article, it seemed like Professor Schmidt was simply being metaphorical when he described the temple as being in "Eden." I didn't think he was being literal at all and that it was clearly the article writer who then went off the reservation with his loopy theories about the biblical Eden.

A shame he was able to twist Schmidt's words to support his "theories" in order to hawk his book.

Thanks for your kind words. Yes, Schmidt might have mentioned some metaphorical connection, since the area around the site (the plain of Harran) is indeed connected to the Old Testament (Abraham lived there and the place of his birth (in Islamic believe) is just a few kilometres away). But he avoids stressing connections like these too much - you can imagine how fast news like these spread ("German archaeologists discover paradise") and how "happy" local authorities are about publicity like this.

I'd be happy to share some more bits and pieces of the site. But for now (works are still in progress ... and they will be for some decades, I guess) I have not much more to offer than some photos (here and here), I'm afraid.

Yeah, don't worry, it was obvious this guy was selling a book! However, just reading between his lines it was also obvious what a fascinating and unique a find it is. It's much better to hear someone who's actually working on the project tell us things we want to know about!

Thanks for the kind words! Of course I'm happy to answer, if you have any questions.

AWESOME PHOTOS!! Wow, thanks for sharing.

Also, gentlemen, I found another article by the Smithsonian here: http://www.smithsonianmag.com/history-archaeology/gobekli-tepe.html

There's also some videos of the site on Youtube. This one's in German but has some cool footage: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TU2qwoMfq-U Plus you can access a bunch of others from here.

This is incredible stuff!

There is, actually, an archeological book called Sumer: Cities of Eden. Here is a link to it: http://www.amazon.com/Sumer-Cities-Eden-Lost-Civilizations/dp/0809498871 The most interesting part is that they show how "Eden" was actually a part of ancient Sumeria. The explanation, basically, goes something like this:

The Bible mentions four specific rivers: the Tigris, Euphrates, Pison, and Gihon. Now we know for a fact that the Tigris and Euphrates run through the middle of central Iraq and go all the way to the Persian Gulf (more or less).
What most people don't know is that the two rivers of Iraq once had two long tributaries that the ancient people thought were rivers in their own right. That's the Pison and the Gihon, which long-since dried up. All four of these "rivers" met in one place in Iraq, back when Iraq was Sumeria. That place was called "Dilmun", which means: "Delight, Paradise, and Garden of the Gods." Depending on if you're speaking Sumerian or Babylonian, that is. The thing with Dilmun is that is (supposedly) sank into the Persian Gulf when the once fertile land surrounding it turned to soggy marshes. So, technically, the Garden of Eden can never be found because the piece of land it once was on is now under the Persian Gulf. And if you dove intot he gulf looking for it, all you'd find of it after thousands and thousands of years would be ocean floor covered with the usual sea life. This is a little-known fact many don't know.

That's also why we'll never find Atlantis. Because if we were at its' precise location according to Plato, all we'd find after all this time would be, to our perception, ocean floor. Even ruins would crumble after so long under water, and when you look at the ruins of more recent things, like the underwater ruins that were once part of Alexandria's ancient coastline from the time of Cleopatra, almost everything is rubble. Given that Atlantis was (possibly) from a period best defined as "pre-history" even rubble would crumble to nothing (or at least very little) and would be so covered by the ocean floor due to time and plate movements that... well, you get the basic picture.

Now, some claim that Bahrain (having been the historical place also named Dilmun) is the site of the legendary Dilmun. However, most scholars agree that the later, historical Dilmun was merely named after the legendary one.

Let's remember what the Bible said: that Eden was watered by all four of the rivers. The only place that would have been possible is the place that is now underwater. Plus, tradition holds that God removed Eden from the face of the Earth so that mankind could never reach it. If the legend of Atlantis and the tale of Noah's Flood are "true" examples of the way God works, then that in turn indicates the likelihood of Dilmoon being where they maintain it is: under the waters of the gulf. I'm not saying this was literally God's doing, but that is what the Biblical position on the subject would be, just as the old Greek position of Atlantis is that Zeus destroyed it in anger. And that... is that, as they say. More than this about Eden/Dilmun no one really knows or seems to be able to agree upon. There is one more curious fact that most don't know:

In Sumerian/Babylonian legend, each of the gods had their own walled garden where they would keep humans to work and toil for them. So, technically, the Garden at Eden/Dilmun would have merely been the one that belonged to the god who lived there. And Adam and Eve would have been merely those two humans who inhabited that particular garden, which to them would have seemed like all there was in creation. The famous line in the Bible where Cain and Able find wives in a distant land proves that Adam and Ever not only were not the only people in the land at that time, but that they could not have been the first human beings per se. Probably the first of their race, is more closer to the truth. Of course, all this is legend, not fact. But In my experience, every legend tends to spring up from something, someplace, so no legend should ever be totally discounted without knowing what inspired it, if anything did. Sometimes a story is just a story, but that isn't *always* so.

Discussion with orthodox views and literal interpretations of religious mythology make for difficult discussion unless you just agree. The garden of eden is a piece of great literary mythology. It was not meant to be taken literally. By looking at it as a metaphor you open up a great plethora of perspectives that may lend themselves to a deeper understanding of the nature of Man and his plight in His manifest form.