From the article: "The arm and hand reliefs on the T-shaped pillars found in and around Göbekli Tepe have long reinforced the idea that these stones symbolized humans. This new find at Karahan Tepe, the first to feature a human face carved into a T-shaped pillar, is considered a turning point in Neolithic research."
Keyword "megalith". We have older carved statues. We have older carved, stone statues. We have older, carved stone statues depicting people, as well as statues from this same site that are full body.
It's from basically the same period and culture as urfa man, but at a site that's been initially dated a few hundred years earlier and is generally understood to have been inhabited first. It's contemporaneous with the famous T-pillars at Gobekli Tepe. The important thing is that this is the first T-pillar discovered with a human face, aside from the one with just a human outline.
Can I just say that it is fantastic that they have included so many detailed pictures of the obelisk. How many times have you visited an article about a discovery only to have no pictures in the article.
My first exact same thoughts. Every time there is some interesting discovery it’s often with only a single photo or none and a huge wall of text. Pictures speak louder than words in this case.
I kept scrolling though multiple articles as they seem to have a format type for these types of articles where its numbers a small paragraph and a high quality photo. Simply love it.
I haven't opened the article yet, since I usually check the top comments to see if it's worth the click, but my first thought when clicking through to the comments was, "this damn article better have pictures for once".
I'd actually have appreciated photos of the discovery as it happened. This obelisk is mounted upright. Even a picture of it being mounted, a crane and straps included.
Is this good archaeology? I worry it might be something else.
Great find! and I don’t want to underestimate the discovery by any means, but...
We humans are predisposed to see anthropomorphic shapes in things. I understand why that could be interpreted as a face, but at the same time, it could just be a random shape. It’s just a “T” shape. Sure, it could look like a nose and a pair of eyes, but it could also just be... something.
The Tepe sites are really fascinating. Every discovery leads to so many more questions - how did they construct these sites, what were they using some of the structures for, and so on.
At Karahan Tepe is the pit full of pillars, with the human-face head on the outer rim .. whenever I see this pit, I get a picture in my mind that the entire site was green and fertile, and this pit was filled with water. It would be the ideal device to teach kids to swim - and so on. It's such a fascinating human discovery - the mind serious wanders.
I encourage anyone who is new to this subject to let the imagination run wild. What kinds of people could create these T-shaped pillars, carve them, use them in their building construction .. and then some day, decide to cover it all up with rubble and stone, to be buried for millennia and discovered by some strange, future civilisation.
It makes me wonder what, 12,500 years from now, of our own crazy civilisation might be unearthed, and strange new utility assigned to their purposes ..
It really depends on whether we're going to go through dark ages or a mass extinction event to the point of all our archives being destroyed; if that doesn't happen, we can look up discoveries on wikipedia. If there are any discoveries being made, because the thing with archeology is that things have to have been buried and forgotten about for a long time - grave sites, basements, that kind of thing.
I get it though, it'd be interesting to consider it, but like I said we'd need to forget things first for a long time. But another thing to consider is that the ancient Egyptians had archeologists for ancient Egyptian stuff already, with their history going back from 3000 BC to 30 AD.
These Tepe sites give credence to advanced civilization existing before the last ice age. One example is the mostly dismissed theory of water erosion at the base of the Sphinx, suggesting older civilizations leading up to ancient Egypt. To my understanding, it is mostly dismissed because archaeologists found the idea of something older than the Sphinx to be not possible. Tepe sites challenge this. Wild stuff.
There is something like a billion years missing from the geological record in places called the great unconformity due to erosion on snowball earth, although it's probably not covering up any lost civilizations. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=LXzDfQyUlLg
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The face of the beprenese is located at the top of the Dikili stone; its sharp lines, deep eye sockets and blunt shape nose, and a similar style with human statues found in Karahantepe. This discovery reveals not only the technical mastery of Neolithic people, but also the way he expresses himself and the ability to think abstractly.
I don't think we were in any doubt about the ability of people 12,000 years ago to think abstractly.
Yes, these are faces, but why do they look like pillars to me? Ornamented and sculpted pillars are pretty common across civilizations and I can imagine sloping tent like roof set up that are held up by these pillars. How does one separate a pillar and a obelisk?
The age is pretty impressive, also I noticed that Firefox could translate the article without issues using privacy-preserving offline translation. Now nobody will know that I have read the article!
Don't take the following as an obnoxious distraction. I've not fully imbibed the featured article yet, but the entire area (region) is verily a bedlam of magnificence and wonder.
Those unfamiliar with Derinkuyu must change this hastily. Do your own research, but please see this image (pardon the url - I've been flagged for... browsing the Internet and can't access it directly):
There is/are video/s available and they are more than worth watching.
I can't remember how to spell the many other regional wonders, so won't try.
Edit: ignore anyone who comes along and tries to dismiss this particular example or the surrounding region as trivial, insignificant etc. Explore for yourself and be rewarded accordingly.
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[ 4.3 ms ] story [ 71.8 ms ] threadhttps://www-trthaber-com.translate.goog/foto-galeri/karahant...
It's from basically the same period and culture as urfa man, but at a site that's been initially dated a few hundred years earlier and is generally understood to have been inhabited first. It's contemporaneous with the famous T-pillars at Gobekli Tepe. The important thing is that this is the first T-pillar discovered with a human face, aside from the one with just a human outline.
I kept scrolling though multiple articles as they seem to have a format type for these types of articles where its numbers a small paragraph and a high quality photo. Simply love it.
Is this good archaeology? I worry it might be something else.
We humans are predisposed to see anthropomorphic shapes in things. I understand why that could be interpreted as a face, but at the same time, it could just be a random shape. It’s just a “T” shape. Sure, it could look like a nose and a pair of eyes, but it could also just be... something.
They must think we're stupid.
At Karahan Tepe is the pit full of pillars, with the human-face head on the outer rim .. whenever I see this pit, I get a picture in my mind that the entire site was green and fertile, and this pit was filled with water. It would be the ideal device to teach kids to swim - and so on. It's such a fascinating human discovery - the mind serious wanders.
I encourage anyone who is new to this subject to let the imagination run wild. What kinds of people could create these T-shaped pillars, carve them, use them in their building construction .. and then some day, decide to cover it all up with rubble and stone, to be buried for millennia and discovered by some strange, future civilisation.
It makes me wonder what, 12,500 years from now, of our own crazy civilisation might be unearthed, and strange new utility assigned to their purposes ..
I get it though, it'd be interesting to consider it, but like I said we'd need to forget things first for a long time. But another thing to consider is that the ancient Egyptians had archeologists for ancient Egyptian stuff already, with their history going back from 3000 BC to 30 AD.
I don't think we were in any doubt about the ability of people 12,000 years ago to think abstractly.
Those unfamiliar with Derinkuyu must change this hastily. Do your own research, but please see this image (pardon the url - I've been flagged for... browsing the Internet and can't access it directly):
https://external-content.duckduckgo.com/iu/?u=https%3A%2F%2F...
And an underground map here: https://www.lolaapp.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/09/derinkuyu...
There is/are video/s available and they are more than worth watching.
I can't remember how to spell the many other regional wonders, so won't try.
Edit: ignore anyone who comes along and tries to dismiss this particular example or the surrounding region as trivial, insignificant etc. Explore for yourself and be rewarded accordingly.