Neolithic Survey • Sanliurfa, (Urfa) Museum • 30 April 2024
- Arnold Hermann
- Apr 30, 2024
- 5 min read
Updated: May 29, 2024
Şanlıurfa (Urfa Museum)
The schedule we’ve kept for the last days has been quite demanding, physically. We decided to spent the day in the city of Urfa to check out the archeological museum. As it turns out the Şanlıurfa Museum is very large, its exhibition areas extending over two wings, one dedicated to archeology, the other to ancient mosaics. We spent the entire afternoon in the archeological section and when the guards notified us discreetly of the 7 pm closing time, we‘d only seen about half of the exhibits.
The museum is a must see for anyone interested in humankind’s origins and the dawn of civilization. The Neolithic collection, particularly the areas devoted to the pre-pottery era, are beautifully laid out, and easily accessible. I would like to take the opportunity to express my admiration for the Turkish authorities, particularly the Ministry of Culture and Tourism, for the making these groundbreaking discoveries publicly available in such an aesthetically pleasing manner.
Urfa Museum:
The centerpiece of the pre-pottery Neolithic section is a recreation of Göbekli Tepe’s Temple D. As I entered the sanctuary I was immediately awed by the size of the main T-shaped pillars at its heart. They were about three times my size. The impression was that of entering humanity’s Holy of Holies, a refuge from time granting the itinerant visitor a palpable experience of those otherwise rarified states of mind which we associate with spirituality, otherworldliness, or transcendence:
What came first: the inexplicable sensation that we have stumbled upon a space housing a non-physical, thus numinous presence—or, our designs to erect sanctuaries for the Unseen, if only to lure same into our midst? Either way, the temenos, the physical space we’ve come to set aside for what is “sacred," merely attests for our yearning for things or places that are not of this world. As long as our escape from this Earth remains obscured, we can always set up symbolical getaways, if only to remind ourselves that we do not belong here . . . I guess even Plato’s Cave requires some quiet place for self-reflection.
Nevalı Çori (8400 BC, sister site of Karahan Tepe and Göbekli Tepe—notice the characteristic T-shaped pillars.)
(See: Marta Tobolczyk: 'The World's Oldest Temples in Göbekli Tepe and Nevali Çori, Turkey in the Light of Studies in Ontogenesis of Architecture') https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1877705816328296
Regrettably, the Nevalı Çori site is not accessible anymore, having become submerged by the damming of the Euphrates river some years ago. The site is important in many respects, notably for the oldest finding of domesticated Einkorn wheat—which played a key role in the agricultural revolution that followed.
Nevalı Çori exhibit panel:
Also noteworthy is the almost “modern” architectural design of the houses, as both the diagram below and the model reconstruction at the museum demonstrate. The individual dwellings were furnished with separate conduits below the floor space, which may have served as drainage channels, as well as for cooling the houses. The notion of air-condition as far back as 10,000 years ago? Who knew?
This head from Nevalı Çori featuring a snake on its back, is particularly striking, given that I imagined a similar emblem for the den (clan) of Kayin (when he was still Kariru the Farseeker, see the Ouranian Chronicles, Book 2 and 3.) Kayin, as the principle character of the series, suffers from an extreme case of hyperthymesia, i.e., the inability to forget. His earliest memories involve a farmer named Kariru, the Restless Bark, whose tribe was called the Four-Headed Serpent. Each of the heads represented a “den”, an early form of clan identity. Kayin/Kariru’s den was that of the Emerald Snake, the home of the first farmers and settlers. The other dens, respectively Snake Heads were those of the Red-headed Snake (hunters and herders), Blue-headed Snake (mountain folk), and White-headed Snake (fishmongers and river folk). Kariru lived in Fat Valley, part of the Fertile Crescent, during the domestication of Einkorn wheat:
A different type of sculpture from Nevalı Çori is that of a human carrying an animal on their back. While the museum designates some of these combinations as “totems”—and there are different versions of such figures in the exhibition—they remind me of pictures I have seen of Borneo hunters carrying their quarry on their backs—usually bearded wild boar, a local variety:
A sculpture from Karahan Tepe:
Human carrying a leopard on back, also Karahan Tepe:
What I find particularly striking is the humorous, almost cartoon-like representation of wild pigs or boar. And how consistent the image remains throughout the sites. Compare this painted (!!) boar statue from Göbekli Tepe, Temple D with the exemplars below:
Boar statue Göbekli Tepe:
Lower part of T-shaped pillar, Temple D:
A Göbekli Tepe collage:
A word on the burials of the dead, since the topic has indirect relevance to the events depicted in chapter "Dark Harvest," Brotherhood of Shadows (Book 3) of the Ouranian Chronicles Series. I will let the museum’s exhibit panel explain the matter:
The "skull cult" in question is of particular relevance in "Dark Harvest" (Book 3) also because further evidence of the practice has been found at other Neolithic sites, including during the subsequent Halaf culture.
See article: "Modified human crania from Göbekli Tepe provide evidence for a new form of Neolithic skull cult," (Julia Gresky, Juliane Haelm, and Lee Clare, in Science Advances, 2017 Jun). https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciadv.1700564
Tentative reconstruction of the functional purpose of some of the skull perforations found at Göbekli Tepe (From the article. Credit: Juliane Haelm, DAI):
The article also mentions this unusual T-shaped pillar (#43) from Temple D, depicting not only a headless man (lower right corner, bottom) his right hand raised high, but also the striking image of a vulture carrying or lifting an orb-like object to the heavens. It has been speculated that the spherical offering represents everything from the skull (of the headless man) to his soul, spirit, etc. Or maybe it’s just an egg:
(A close-up of the headless man, who is noticeably aroused. Image courtesy of Klaus Schmidt—Göbekli Tepe’s original excavator. Article, "Animals and a Headless Man at Göbekli Tepe,” Neo-Lithics 2/06, p. 38) https://www.exoriente.org/docs/00066.pdf ):
For an in-depth report on the importance of the site and its discovery, read: "Gobekli Tepe: The World’s First Temple?” Smithsonian Magazine, November 2008
Also hugely informative for the die-hard Göbekli Tepe devotee is this "Tepe Telegrams" blog:
I am going to end this brief with a picture of a mysterious artifact that has always kindled my imagination since I first saw it almost two decades ago. It is an amulet (also referenced as a “plaquette”) made from nephrite jade and discovered at Göbekli Tepe. There are only a few photographs available of the piece—mostly out of focus black and whites. Here was my chance to capture my own image of it which was extremely difficult not only because of the position it had respective the glass case that contained it, but also because of its small size, (perhaps 4 cm long) and the poor lighting which made the subtle carvings hard to catch.
What do these three symbols mean? The first two seem obvious, a snake on the left, a tree in the middle. The jury is out on the third symbol on the right. Opinions range from the stylized representation of a bull, a human being, or a bird. This peculiar arrangement has stirred my inclinations as a day-dreamer, not those of the rigid academic, and so I allowed my imagination to run wild. I thought to myself, “What are the chances that we encounter the depiction of a serpent, a tree, and a human being—if that is what we are looking at—in a place situated between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers, a location traditionally associated with the biblical Garden of Eden?” The only missing item would be a pomegranate “apple.” (Is that what the vulture is carrying?) Again, this is the speculative fiction author talking, not the Parmenidean scholar. We too are allowed to dream occasionally, or to have fun.
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