This 12,000-Year-Old Monument Turned Out to Be the World’s Oldest Calendar

By: Ben Campbell | Last updated: Sep 05, 2024

Gobekli Tepe in Turkey is revered for its megalithic pillars and intricate carvings, which showcase the architectural and artistic abilities of humans over 10,000 years ago.

But to this day, the reason behind the site’s construction remains somewhat of a mystery to researchers.

A New Discovery

A new study from scientists from Scotland proposes the 12,000-year-old structure was more than a ritualistic or ceremonial site composed of enormous stones.

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A photograph of several archaeologists working at a site

Source: Wikimedia

Instead, it may have been constructed to help ancient people track the passage of time.

Early Discovery of Gobekli Tepe

In 1964, a team conducting a geographical survey at a site around 9 miles northeast of the Turkish city of Sanlıurfa was the first to record what would become Gobekli Tepe.

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A photograph of Gobekli Tepe during its initial excavation

Source: Wikimedia

In 1994, the German archaeologist Klaus Schmidt recognized the significance of the site after an initial inspection, and excavations began the following year. What Schmidt and his team unearthed would go on to be labeled one of the most impressive discoveries of the 20th century.

T-Shaped Stone Pillars

After years of excavations, Schmidt and his extensive team slowly unearthed the remains of an enormous site consisting of large pillars laid out in intricate circular formation.

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A photograph of the T-shaped pillars at Gobekli Tepe

Source: Wikimedia

The site has numerous T-shaped limestone tons, some of which stand up to 16 feet tall and weigh over 50 tons.

Intricate Carvings on the Pillars at Gobekli Tepe

Initial dating conducted at the site led researchers to suggest that it could be up to 11,000 years old, making it one of the oldest known man-made structures ever discovered.

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A photograph of a small animal carving at Gobekli Tepe

Source: Wikimedia

Many of the pillars showcase fascinating carvings of animals, from lions to scorpions, foxes, and geometric symbols, all of which have captivated the attention of researchers over the years.

Theories on the Site's Original Use

Professor Schmidt, who worked on the site until his death in 2014, never believed Gobekli Tepe was a settlement. Instead, he was adamant the site in Anatolia was some kind of religious or ceremonial structure.

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Klaus Schmidt speaking at an event in 2014

Source: Wikimedia

When asked about the site’s original purpose at one point in his career, Schmidt said, “This is the first human-built holy place.” Despite his belief, others continue to propose a range of theories surrounding Gobekli Tepe’s function.

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Enormous Calendar in Turkey

Now, a new study published in the journal Time and Mind proposes an entirely alternative theory.

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A photograph of Gobekli Tepe from above

Source: Wikimedia

Researchers from the University of Edinburgh have put forward a compelling theory. They claim that certain carvings found at the site indicate that Gobekli Tepe was associated with the passage of time, serving as an enormous man-made calendar.

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Scientists Analyse Carvings at Gobekli Tepe

The scientists meticulously examined the numerous carved symbols found at the site, suggesting that every “V” represents a day of the year. This thorough examination led them to suggest that one pillar featured 365 “V’s,” making it a total of one solar year.

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A photograph of a carved stone at Gobekli Tepe

Source: Wikimedia

A separate carving featuring a bird-like beat wearing a V around its neck may represent the summer solstice constellation during the era in which the site was occupied.

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Younger Dryas Impact Hypothesis

According to the researchers, Gobekli Tepe’s function as a calendar is preoccupied with day, night, and seasonal changes that may have come following a cataclysmic event.

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A depiction of a large asteroid hitting Earth

Source: Wikimedia

This may align with the Younger Dryas impact hypothesis, which suggests fragments of a comet hit Earth around 10,8000 years ago, ushering in a mini-ice age that eliminated numerous species.

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Astronomers at Gobekli Tepe

In a statement, Martin Sweatman, the lead study researcher from the University of Edinburgh’s School of Engineering, further emphasized their beliefs, suggesting that the ancient inhabitants of Gobekli Tepe were not just builders, but knowledgeable astronomers.

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A photograph of several people watching the stars

Source: Wikimedia

“It appears the inhabitants of Gobekli Tepe were keen observers of the sky,” he said.

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Inhabitants of Gobekli Tepe Closely Watch the Sky

Sweatman continued, their observation of the sky “is to be expected given their world had been devastated by a comet strike. The event might have triggered civilization by initiating a new religion and by motivating developments in agriculture to cope with the cold climate.”

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A photograph of stars pictured in the night sky

Source: Wikimedia

He added, “Possibly, their attempts to record what they saw are the first steps toward the development of writing millennia later.”

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Ancient Astronomers Follow the Cycles of the Sun and Moon

According to the scientists, the carvings suggest the inhabitants of Gobekli Tepe tracked the cycles of the Sun and the Moon, which pre-date all other known calendars by “many millennia.”

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A photograph of the Moon

Source: Wikimedia

They even suggest that ancient astronomers may have held some understanding of the increased potential of meteor strikes when Earth’s orbit passes by circling comment fragments, which has been backed up by modern science.

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Questioning the Markings

Archaeologist Jens Notroff was not immediately convinced about the new findings and questioned whether the markings held a deeper meaning.

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A photograph of three researchers working on laptops at a shared desk

Source: Freepik

He wrote on X, formerly known as Twitter, that there was “an obsession with the idea that there *must* be a secret, a hidden code which needs to and can be decoded—while it’s really just about past humans living their lives.”

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The Nebra Sky Disk

The possible comet shape on Pillar 18 shares many of the characteristics of the Nebra sky disk, a second-millennium BCE artifact unearthed in modern-day Germany.

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The Nebra Sky Disk on a black background

Source: Frank Vincentz/Wikimedia Commons

The Nebra sky disk, which dates from the second millennium BCE, depicts the sun, the moon, and possibly other astronomical shapes.

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Not Everyone Believes in the Theory

But not everyone is on board for the comet hypothesis. Some researchers suggest that the pillar depicts a mythological boat or a rainbow, Astronomy Magazine wrote in 2021.

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A woman looking confused at a phone

Source: Alex Green/Pexels

The researchers suggest that the shape might be an aurora borealis, according to a short report in Physic Today from that same year.

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The Previous Oldest Calendar

Before the discovery of Gobekli Tepe, hunter-gatherer societies created the world’s oldest known calendar, a Mesolithic monument. The Mesolithic monument, which was found in Aberdeenshire, Scotland, by the National Trust for Scotland in 2004, dates back to around 8,000 BC.

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A photograph of a female researcher seated at her desk

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The team published their findings in the journal Internet Archaeology sheds remarkable new light on the lunisolar device, which predates the first formal time-measuring devices known to man.

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The Importance of Measuring Time

Measuring time is one of the most important achievements made by humans, but when we “created” the concept of time is widely unknown. But knowing that communities long ago can shed light on how society has developed.

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A man dressed in a suit is confused as he checks the time

Source: Freepik

Until the discovery of the Mesolithic, the first formal calendars appeared 5000 years ago in Mesopotamia.

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A Calendar Mimic the Phases of the Moon

Researchers discovered that the Mesolithic monument was created by hunter-gatherers in Aberdeenshire nearly 10,000 years ago. The calendar appears to mimic the phases of the Moon.

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A photograph of the Moon in the night sky

Source: Wikimedia

The researchers behind the project believe that the Moon phases helped the community track the months over the course of the year.

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The Site Also Holds Importance

The site that the ancient calendar, Warren Field, Crathes, also aligns on the Midwinter Sunrise, providing an annual astronomic correction to maintain the link between the passage of time.

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A peaceful view of some mountains during sunrise. The sky is blue and pink and a man is standing on one of the mountains

Source: Colton Duke/Unsplash

The Moon, the asynchronous solar year, and the associated seasons indicated this.

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Reconstruction History

“The evidence suggests that hunter-gatherer societies in Scotland had both the need and sophistication to track time across the years, to correct for seasonal drift of the lunar year and that this occurred nearly 5,000 years before the first formal calendars known in the Near East,” Vince Gaffney, Professor of Landscape Archaeology at the University of Birmingham, commented.

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A photograph of a board meeting

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He notes: “In doing so, this illustrates one important step towards the formal construction of time and therefore history itself.”

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The Specialty of Warren Field

Dave Cowley, Aerial Survey projects manager at RCAHMS, said: “We have been taking photographs of the Scottish landscape for nearly 40 years, recording thousands of archaeological sites that would never have been detected from the ground.

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A photograph of several researchers working at their desk

Source: Wikimedia

“Warren Field stands out as something special, however. It is remarkable to think that our aerial survey may have helped to find the place where time itself was invented.”

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The Sophistication of the Hunter-Gatherers 

Dr Richard Bates, of the University of St Andrews, comments: “St Andrews has an established reputation for remote sensing studies of early prehistoric sites in Scotland but the site at Warren Field is unique.

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A depiction of hunter-gatherers drawn by an artist

Source: Wikimedia

“It provides exciting new evidence for the earlier Mesolithic in Scotland demonstrating the sophistication of these early societies and revealing that 10,000 years ago hunter-gatherers constructed monuments that helped them track time.”

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The (Previous) Oldest Known Calendar 

“This is the earliest example of such a structure and there is no known comparable site in Britain or Europe for several thousands of years after the monument at Warren Fields was constructed,” Bates noted.

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A photograph of a female researcher working from her desk

Source: Wikimedia

Unfortunately, this was the oldest calendar for nearly a decade until the discovery of the Mesolithic.

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Ancient Astronomers Were Well Ahead of Their Time

In conclusion, the researchers propose that the carvings at Gobekli Tepe clearly showcase the ancient inhabitants’ recording of precise dates and following the movement of constellations.

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A photograph of Gobekli Tepe with it’s modern cover

Source: Wikimedia

The researchers based in Scotland even propose that ancient civilizations knew of the wobble in Earth’s axis, a discovery that wouldn’t be documented until Hipparchus of ancient Greece theorized the process in 150 BCE. This suggests that these ancient astronomers were well ahead of their time.

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