The current distribution of sites with T-shaped pillars CREDIT: THE TEPE TELEGRAMS News & Notes from the Göbekli Tepe Research Staff

Not much news that both interests me while being germane to this site, but two caught my eye:

Mardin, Turkey

Since Kortik Tepe in post 228, I have been looking for satellite, smaller contemporaneous temples which are stylistically similar to Gobekli Tepe with stone rectangular cross-sectioned columns with “T” tops. I have been hoping to find them further afield than those close to Gobekli Tepe in the Tigris-Euphrates watershed, but with no luck. The map at the top of this page shows where the “T” and “I” and round columns are currently found. The latest temple found with rectangular “I” cross-sectioned (not “T”) columns is at Mardin Turkey and still inside the Tigris-Euphrates watershed, but is not yet on the Tepe Telegram map. I have still not found anything that fits my specifications outside the watershed. But the number of satellite sites is substantial and does seem to indicate the spreading settlement of the people-group who built Gobekli-Tepe—and probably shared the same religious viewpoint that was spawned by the Younger Dryas mini-ice age that interrupted the current year global warming period following the last Glacial Maximum 22,000 years ago.

Yumuktepe.

Some of the oldest fortification walls, dating to 4500 BCE, are reputedly being excavated in Yumuktepe  Turkey. The fortifications are stone walls, but if accurately dated, these predate the earliest fortified cities of Southern Mesopotamia e.g. Ur and Uruk. Of course, Jerico is credited with the oldest known city wall at 8000 BCE.

Thanks for visiting,

R. E. J. Burke