Megaliths - Early Stone Complexes in Eastern Turkey

Early Stone Complexes in Eastern Turkey

At a number of sites in eastern Turkey, large ceremonial complexes from the 9th millennium BC have been discovered. They belong to the incipient phases of agriculture and animal husbandry. Large circular structures involving carved megalithic orthostats are a typical feature, e.g. at Nevali Cori and Göbekli Tepe. Although these structures are the most ancient megalithic structures known so far, it is not clear that any of the European Megalithic traditions (see below) are actually derived from them. At Göbekli Tepe four stone circles have been excavated from an estimated 20. Some measure up to 30 metres across. The stones carry carved reliefs of boars, foxes, lions, birds, snakes and scorpions.

Read more about this topic:  Megaliths

Famous quotes containing the words early, stone, eastern and/or turkey:

    I could be, I discovered, by turns stern, loving, wise, silly, youthful, aged, racial, universal, indulgent, strict, with a remarkably easy and often cunning detachment ... various ways that an adult, spurred by guilt, by annoyance, by condescension, by loneliness, deals with the prerogatives of power and love.
    —Gerald Early (20th century)

    Ye could not know where lies a thing so fair,
    No stone is there to show, no tongue to say,
    What was; no dirge, except the hollow sea’s,
    Mourns o’er the beauty of the Cyclades.
    George Gordon Noel Byron (1788–1824)

    Should the German people lay down their arms, the Soviets ... would occupy all eastern and south-eastern Europe together with the greater part of the Reich. Over all this territory, which with the Soviet Union included, would be of enormous extent, an iron curtain would at once descend.
    Joseph Goebbels (1897–1945)

    You can make as good a design out of an American turkey as a Japanese out of his native stork.
    —For the State of Illinois, U.S. public relief program (1935-1943)