Who Doesn’t Love A Good Ancient Temple? A Guide to Gobeklitepe the Worlds Oldest Temple
When I was gearing up to spend three months in Turkey I did a lot of research and part of that research include learning the language. Though I used Duolingo like almost everyone else I also dove deep into Turkish television series. This helped me a lot with the language but also cultural things, food, and even places I had to see. One of my favorite shows was the Netflix original, The Gift (called Atiye in Turkey).
It introduced me to an archaeological site — Gobeklitepe — that I had never heard of and you know I am a huge nerd so I had to do more research and it was so interesting that I knew that I had to add it to my itinerary. This meant that Sanliurfa became my second destination on my travels through Turkey. After a very long bus ride from Istanbul to Sanliurfa, I was able to experience the city and see this amazing site.
Gobeklitepe — The Worlds Oldest Temple
For years archaeologists and historians have talked about the root cause behind civilization moving from nomadic wandering to settling down. It was an accepted theory that the agricultural civilizations happened and then religion came from the collection of people looking for ways to answer how things worked and why they happened. But with the discovery of Gobeklitepe that theory may be changing.
In 1963 the site was looked at and it was decided there was nothing there of any importance. But that changed in 1995 when a German archaeologist, Klaus Schmidt found a stunning temple that brought with it some amazing new insights into human history. The temple that the excavation team unearthed was dated to 9000 BCE which means it is older than iconic archaeological sites like the pyramids and Stonehenge.
As the archaeologists continued uncovering things they soon found elaborate carvings that led them to realize they had uncovered a temple. This discovery brought the team to the idea that humans of this time settled because of religion. Previously as we said it was thought that religion came after the nomadic humans of the time settled down.
So now that we have talked a little about the history of this amazing site, its impact on archaeology and history we can jump into the tactical information you need to visit the site.
How to Get There & Other Important Information
So there are many tours that you can here to head out to the site. But if you want to do it on your own you can also jump on the bus and ride for 30 minutes out to the site. This is the best option if you are looking for a budget way to see the site.
In order to find the bus, you will need to find the bus stop where the airport shuttle picks up. For those that use maps.me you can simply search for the airport shuttle (or on other map apps try the abide station)and find the pin on the map.
The shuttle picks up regularly and isn’t that expensive (I think I paid 5TL each way). One thing of note after the past couple of years pandemic the bus does not take cash anymore. This means you should look to invest in the Urfa card.
(The driver did allow e to buy one on the bus though which seems a little counterintuitive but hey what do I know!)
Admission Fees (These fees are as of 2022)
55TL — Site
65TL — Site +Exhibition
110TL — Site+Exhibition+Audio Guide
Was It Worth That Loooong Bus Ride?
No not the 30-minute bus ride out to the site but the 18+ hour bus ride to get to Sanliurfa! The bus ride was long and I got about three hours of sleep but even with all of that my day spent at Gobeklitepe was well worth all of that. It is a nice way to spend half a day while visiting Sanliurfa. If you are a history nerd like me then spending the 30–45 minutes at the site will have you smiling all day.
I am glad that I made the decision to add Sanliurfa to my itinerary not just because of getting to see this amazing archaeological site but because the city itself is pretty amazing too. Don’t believe me then wait for next week’s look at Sanliurfa and the sites to see in it!
Until that next post Shadows as always I wish you safe journeys. (If you would like to check out my vlog for this site and many others you can head over to my YouTube channel.)
