The archeologist who changed history

At the end of the 1970s, a local from a village brought a statue to a museum. The statue was so primitive that it was not taken seriously by the museum officials; it was thrown into a corner in the depot. Years passed, and then the statue attracted the attention of Turkish and foreign archeologists who were conducting excavations in Şanlıurfa.

One of them was the German archeologist Klaus Schmidt. He took part in several excavations around Şanlıurfa and had closely observed the transition of humans into the sedentary stage of the Neolithic age, from the hunter stage of the Paleolithic age.

In 1995, excavations started in Göbeklitepe under Schmidt’s scientific supervision. Some of the first findings on the first layers told them they were on the right path. Next year, joint excavations with the museum started under the umbrella of the German Archeology Institute. Schmidt intensified his works in 2007, becoming the head of the Göbeklitepe excavations following a Cabinet decree. The biggest support on this issue was given to him by his wife, fellow archeologist Çiğdem Köksal.

During the excavations, sanctuaries thousands of years older than the pyramids, 7,000 years older than Stonehenge in England, were spotted in oval and rectangular spaces. But Schmidt was only able to excavate around 20 of the shrines, which are among the oldest mankind has constructed.

It is still not known how the T-shaped 2-6 meter-high pillars with such weight were brought to that location. The imagery of animals such as snakes, lions and bulls added a different enigma to them. All the mammals in the images were male; there were no females. But there was one naked woman seen in one stone.

More than a 1,000 animal...