جوبكلتيبه (جوبكلتيبه)

Gobeklitepe went up about 11,000 years ago. That is roughly 6,000 years earlier than Stonehenge, at a time when people in the area had no pottery, metal tools or writing, and did not yet farm in settled villages. Hunter-gatherers cut limestone pillars as tall as about 5.5 metres, decorated them with foxes, boars, snakes, vultures and scorpions, and arranged them in circular enclosures on a hill close to Sanliurfa. No older monumental site is known anywhere. Foreign visitors pay about €20 for a ticket in 2026.

Key information

History in brief

For generations, farmers working the hill, whose name translates as potbelly hill, turned up carved stones in their fields. A survey in the 1960s recorded the site without realising how old it was. Then in 1994 the German archaeologist Klaus Schmidt came, understood what he was looking at, and started digging the following year together with the Sanliurfa Museum and the German Archaeological Institute. His team exposed the large enclosures, and radiocarbon dating put the earliest layers at around 9600 BC, as the last Ice Age was ending.

The find overturned ideas about how civilisation began. The usual view had been that people settled down and farmed first, and built temples later. Gobeklitepe hints that coming together to build monuments may have come first and helped lead people into settled life. Scholars still argue over whether it was a temple, a meeting place or something else. UNESCO inscribed Gobeklitepe as a World Heritage site in 2018.

Highlights

• Enclosure D. The best preserved of the circles. Its two giant central pillars carry carved arms, hands and belts, so they clearly represent human or divine figures.
• The Vulture Stone. Pillar 43 in Enclosure D, crowded with birds, a scorpion and other animals. Some researchers see it as a record of an ancient event or a map of the stars; others reject that reading.
• Enclosures A, B and C. Circles of walls and pillars decorated with snakes, foxes and boars.
• The walkway and roof. A modern roof shelters the main dig, and a raised walkway circles it so you can look down into the enclosures.
• The visitor centre. Models, films and reconstructions introduce the site before you go up.

More to see nearby

In the city itself, the Sanliurfa Archaeology Museum displays many finds from Gobeklitepe and neighbouring sites, among them a full-size replica of an enclosure and the Urfa Man statue, 11,000 years old. Karahantepe, about an hour's drive to the east, is a related site with pillars and carved heads, and reportedly the same ticket gets you in. Both belong to a larger group of Stone Age hilltop sites called the Tas Tepeler, or Stone Hills.

When to go

Spring and autumn are the best seasons. Summer in Sanliurfa is very hot, often over 40 degrees, so be there when the gates open. Winters are mild but may be wet. Midday is the busiest time, when the tour buses pull in.

The private Gobeklitepe day trip from Istanbul with flights flies you to Sanliurfa for a private day at the site and in the old city. The private Mount Nemrut and Gobeklitepe tour with flights adds the giant statues on Mount Nemrut across two days. The two-day Nemrut and Gobeklitepe tour with flights includes both and a night in Sanliurfa, from US$1,050.

Tips

• If possible, go to the Sanliurfa Archaeology Museum before the site; it makes the enclosures easier to understand.
• Take the audio guide, since the signs say little.
• Carry water. The path from the shuttle stop to the enclosures is short but has no shade.
• While in Sanliurfa, see the Pools of Abraham and the old bazaar, and eat the kebabs the city is known for.

Our Gobeklitepe destination page has more on the region.

Frequently Asked Questions