Göbekli Tepe is a temple located in southeastern Turkey near the Syrian border. It is a 11-12,000 year-old archaeological site widely considered the world’s oldest temple. Dating to around 9500–8000 BCE, this Pre-Pottery Neolithic site features massive T-shaped stone pillars, some weighing 10 tonnes, arranged in circles, predating Stonehenge by 6,000 years. It is the oldest pagan, polytheistic temple known.

We have very few clues about their way of life. They did not cultivate crops, since every seed recovered from the site belongs to wild species. They did not raise livestock, as the enormous quantities of bones found there come exclusively from hunted animals, suggesting large communal feasts. The stylized human figures carved at the centre of the enclosures wear simple loincloths, implying a climate warmer than one might expect at the end of the Ice Age, or the people may have come from warmer places like Israel and Arabia.

These details hint that the origins of Göbekli Tepe may reach back even further than the current estimates, perhaps by several millennia.

The site does not resemble a cemetery, for no human remains have been discovered. Nor does it appear to be a settlement, as there is no reliable water source to sustain a resident population. Its purpose remains elusive. Across many of the pillars, one finds repeated carvings of serpentine forms descending from above. Some figures appear to release these serpents from their bodies, as though they were celestial, religious, beings descending upon the world.

The earliest monotheistic Temple was rebuilt many centuries later in Arabia by Prophet Abraham, the Hebrew (Genesis 14.13) and Prophet Ismael, Abraham’s son. A place is never holy through the choice of humans, but because it has been chosen by God, and revealed by God’s prophets. Believers in God’s Prophets can see the site’s holiness. Unbelievers are blind to it.

But why does Islam have two sacred sites rather than one? Because even before he left the rejection of the idol-worshipping Arabs of Makkah, for the future promise of Medina, Prophet Muhammad had already visited the other holy site in Jerusalem (Qur’an 17:1-2), to personally experience Allah’s signs.

Thus, both sacred scriptures use similar words to describe the two sanctuaries: Beitullah, BeitEl, Bayt al-Maqdis, and Beit HaMikdash to illustrate how they fit together like a pair of lungs.

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© The Times of Israel (Blogs)