Before the great monotheistic religions, before the Greek gods, before ancient Egypt, before the Hittites, there was one place in the world that formed the earliest known religious spot. The earliest known temple complex, the earliest known pilgrimage site. That place? Göbeklitepe

Have you ever played the game of “name a historical figure from each century?” Quick, name one historical figure from the 17th century. The 16th? The 15th? How far back can you go? We only mention it to emphasize just HOW FAR BACK Göbeklitepe goes… all the way back 12,000 YEARS AGO! 10,000 years before Jesus walked the Earth, pilgrims were flocking from all over Mesopotamia to visit the massive temple complex erected at Göbeklitepe.

This coincides with the first time in human history that we moved from hunter-gatherer societies to more settled agricultural societies, again around 12,000 years ago. As humans learned to use and grow wild cereals (again, in the Levant and Mesopotamia. In fact, nearby Karaca Dağ is the location that many geneticists believe the first ever grains were cultivated!) (Isn’t this region just fascinating!), they were forced to leave behind their previously nomadic lifestyle for a life of farming. This led to the first permanent cities and towns, and it appears to have rapidly led to the first ever permanent religious complex in Göbeklitepe.

So what do we know about Göbeklitepe and how do we know it?

Not a great deal, quite frankly. We know the dates of over 200 T-shaped megaliths (hmmm… now why does that religious shape sound familiar?