Archive

Göbekli Tepe is the oldest and one of the most important among the megalithic sites in the world. Its archaeoastronomical relevance has been recently evidenced by Collins (2013), according to whom the central pillars in four of the enclosures discovered in the site are oriented toward the setting point of the star Deneb (α Cyg), as this point moves in the course of the time, due to the equinox precession and the proper motion of the star. Taking into account these effects, Collins (2013) obtained an astronomical dating for the various enclosures which agrees rather well with the one obtained by Dietrich (2011) with the technique of carbon-14. In the present paper the careful

During the 2009 excavation season, the head of an animal sculpture made of limestone was identified on the surface of the southern slope of the south-eastern hillock of Göbekli Tepe (Schmidt, forthcoming). All attempts made to remove this sculpture from the surface soil failed.Subsequently, a small sounding was excavated in order to remove the head and to document its context. This sounding revealed that, in actual fact, we were dealing with what appeared to be the head of a large sculpture that was set in a stone wall. In 2010 a larger part of the same area (L9-46), measuring 5.00 x 6.00 metres, was excavated in order to better