The Garden Of Eden was probably here in SE Asia.
Posted on 10/17/2006 6:10:35 AM PDT by NYer
I am standing above an archaeological dig, on a hillside in southern Turkey. Beneath me, workmen are unearthing a sculpture of some sort of reptile (right). It is delicate and breathtaking. It is also part of the world's oldest temple.
If this sounds remarkable, it gets better. The archaeologist in charge of the dig believes that this artwork once stood in Eden. The archaeologist is Klaus Schmidt; the site is called Gobekli Tepe.
In academic circles, the astonishing discoveries at Gobekli Tepe have long been a talking point. Since the dig began in 1994, experts have made the journey to Kurdish Turkey to marvel at these 40-odd standing stones and their Neolithic carvings.
But what is new, and what makes this season's dig at Gobekli so climactic, is the quality of the latest finds - plus that mind-blowing thesis which links them to Paradise.
The thesis is this. Historians have long wondered if the Eden story is a folk memory, an allegory of the move from hunter-gathering to farming. Seen in this way, the Eden story describes how we moved from a life of relative leisure - literally picking fruit from the trees - to a harsher existence of ploughing and reaping.
And where did this change take place? Biologists now think the move to agriculture began in Kurdish Turkey. Einkorn wheat, a forerunner of the world's cereal species, has been genetically linked to here. Similarly, it now seems that wild pigs were first domesticated in Cayonu, just 60 miles from Gobekli.
This region also has Biblical connections, tying it closer to the Eden narrative. Muslims believe that Sanliurfa, a nearby city, is the Old Testament city of Ur. Harran, a town down the road, is mentioned in Genesis twice.
Even the topography of Gobekli Tepe is 'correct'. The Bible describes rivers descending from Paradise. Gobekli Tepe sits in the 'fertile crescent' between the rivers Tigris and Euphrates. The Bible also mentions mountains surrounding Eden. From the brow of Gobekli's hills you can see the Taurus range.
But how does this intoxicating
notion link to the architecture of Gobekli, and those astonishing finds?
Klaus Schmidt (left) explains: "Gobekli Tepe is staggeringly old. It dates from 10,000BC, before pottery and the wheel. By comparison, Stonehenge dates from 2,000BC. Our excavations also show it is not a domestic site, it is religious - the world's oldest temple. This site proves that hunter-gatherers were capable of complex art and organised religion, something no-one imagined before."
As for the temple's exact purpose, Schmidt gestures at a new discovery: a carving of a boar, and ducks flying into nets. "I think Gobekli Tepe celebrates the chase, the hunter-gatherer lifestyle. And why not? This life was rich and leisured, it gave them time enough to become accomplished sculptors."
So why did the hunters of Gobekli give up their agreeable existence? Schmidt indicates the arid brown hilltops. "Gathering together for religion meant that they needed to feed more people. So they started cultivating the wild grasses." But this switch to agriculture put pressure on the landscape; trees were cut down, the herds of game were dispersed. What was once a paradisaical land became a dustbowl.
Schmidt explains that this switchtook place around 8,000BC. Coincidentally, the temple of Gobekli Tepe was deliberately covered with earth around this time.
We may never know why the hunter-gatherers buried their 'temple in Eden'. Perhaps they were grieving for their lost innocence. What is unquestionable is the discoveries made in Gobekli Tepe, in the last few weeks, are some of the most exciting made anywhere in half a century.
Schmidt shows me some workmen scraping earth from a rock relief (left). It is marvellously detailed: it shows scorpions, waterbirds, and river life. I suddenly realise I am the first person other than an archaeologist to see it in 10,000 years.
The Garden Of Eden was probably here in SE Asia.
This article is so ideological it is laughable. Noble savage and all that!
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Southern Mesopotamia, where the Tigris and the Euphrates flowed, first separately, then united, towards the Persian Gulf, was more beguiling in history than in fact. Here were Babylon and Nineveh, here Sennacherib had fought his battles, here indeed, some said, had been the Garden of Eden at the start of the world. But it was a fearful country now. Much of it was empty desert, inhabited by lawless predatory Arabs who loathed nearly everyone, the rest wide and foetid fen, inhabited by amphibious marshmen who detested everyone else. The irrigation works of the ancients had long since crumbled, and the long years of Turkish rule had left only decay and depression. There were no paved roads, no railways. Such towns as existed were hardly more than excretions of mud, like piles of rubbish in the wasteland, relieved only by the minarets of shabby mosques, or the lugubrious walls of forts. In the summer it was indescribably hot, in the winter unbearably cold. In the dry season everything was baked like leather, in the wet season 10,000 square miles were flooded, the waters gradually oozing away to leave malodorous wastes of marsh. Fleas, sand-flies and mosquitoes tormented the place, and its inhabitants lived lives of ignorant poverty, enlivened only by sporadic excitements of crime or brigandage, the illusions of religion and the consolations of sex.Is this the land of dear old Adam (one British soldier wondered),
And beautiful Mother Eve?
If so dear reader small blame to them
For sinning and having to leave.— James (Jan) Morris, Farewell the Trumpets.
WHatever it is, it is hungry or its ribs wouldn't be sticking out.
How about going for real heresy and postulating that this culture existed prior to the last ice advance and was wiped out by a combination of invading hunter-gatherers and climate change as the ice advanced? I think humanity has dropped the ball more than once.
David was in a group - but none of the tribes of Israel were with him; they were positioned throughout the land.
Then to suggest that the "tribe" flourished under David because of a more stable agricultural environment strikes me as completely missing all of the points. Or perhaps I'm missing something - the civil war in David's later years... Bad crops in successive years? "Absolem, oh Absolem! You should have irrigated!"
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I remember being taught that the females were the "gatherers" of local grains and fruits, and the men were the "hunters" who would venture off afar to track game. The women would hold down the home base and raise the children.
Coincidentally, the temple of Gobekli Tepe was deliberately covered with earth around this time.That's an (ahem) interesting claim. The earliest known sign of agriculture (and it's from the Near East) is RC 14,000 year old multirow barley, a bred variety which requires irrigation, and that's 4,000 years before this site. So I think the interpretation is the offspring of a fertile imagination and/or a case of conclusions fitting the assumptions.
GoE was in Afghanistan. They all know this. An Afghani told me.
Garden of Eden? It was in what is now Ventura County, California.
bookmark for later
What's the water-sphinx theory?
It has something to do with the erosion marks on the base of the Sphinx looking more like they were made by water (rains), than desert winds. If so, then the Sphinx is much older (from a wetter period) than is currently thought (it has been modified, we know that).
"If you ever do extended survival training, you'll find that it takes a lot of work to get food by finding it here and there throughout the year. Plus, it is not assured that you'll find enough in any one place."
If you're ever reduced to really extended survival training, of the sort where nobody is going to come and rescue you, ever, you'll find that it does not take all that much work to get food by finding it here and there for about 9 months of the year. Roll over stones and turn over logs: there are plenty of insects and worms and all sorts of nasty protein sources which can be eaten, and which will keep you alive. Most green stuff can be eaten, but most of it is not really necessary. Bugs and worms will keep you alive, and they are plentiful just about everywhere. And horrible.
During snowy periods...well...there's a reason naked mankind didn't develop in the temperate and subarctic zones!
For that, you have to live off all that stored bug fat, and store up acorns (which are horrible, but edible). The inside of pine bark will keep you from getting scurvy (and is also horrible).
Life as a wild man is short, but it's not really starvation that gets you. There really are enough bugs out there to keep you alive indefinitely. The problem is that the combination of cold and exposure lowers your immunity, and you die of illnesses and infections much more quickly. A cold becomes the flu becomes pneumonia, and pfffft, you're worm meat.
And they're gonna charge people a dollar and a half just to see em...
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