Historical Gobekli Tepe website meets conspiracy theories — and Joe Rogan : NPR

GOBEKLI TEPE, Turkey — Tour information Sabahattin Alkan herds curious vacationers via the scorching afternoon warmth, luring them with the promise of one thing far stranger than your typical trip snap.

“Over right here on the precise, you see a spaceship landed not too long ago,” he says with a smile.

He is joking. Principally. However extra on that in a minute.

We’re within the Urfa plain, a dry, dusty stretch about 25 miles from the Turkish-Syrian border.

That “spaceship” is definitely only a curved roof. However what lies beneath the dome has sparked a long time of thriller, curiosity — and conspiracy.

“It is fairly an fascinating place, truly,” Alkan assures his viewers.

He is speaking about Gobekli Tepe, one of many oldest identified archaeological websites on Earth, courting again practically 12,000 years.

Alkan factors to T-shaped limestone pillars carved with human arms, arms resting on stomachs, and wild animals: lions, foxes, boars, scorpions and birds amongst them.

Klaus Schmidt, the German archaeologist who led the positioning’s first main excavations within the Nineteen Nineties, known as Gobekli Tepe “the world’s oldest temple,” theorizing that it introduced collectively nomadic hunter-gatherers from throughout the Center East.

In the present day, that view has shifted. Some now interpret it as a ceremonial gathering website, whereas others counsel it functioned as a social hub the place rituals helped bind collectively early communities.

Emilie Salvesen, a tour operator visiting the positioning, says the query of whether or not there was a non secular element to the positioning nonetheless fascinates her.

“Did they expertise the divine in the way in which that we would consider it in the present day?” she asks, gesturing towards one of many inscribed pillars. “I think about it was rather more existential.”

The reality? Nonetheless principally a thriller.

Scientists are frequently adjusting their hypotheses concerning the website’s supposed function. And it isn’t a simple investigation.

“No matter we inform now, I do not know if it is going to be correct info or not, as a result of perhaps our thought will change in one other 50 years,” Alkan says. “We’re attempting to foretell 12,000 years in the past.”

However that uncertainty has thrown the door extensive open for one particular group in search of solutions: conspiracy theorists.

Conspiracy theories take root — with assist from Joe Rogan

Graham Hancock, a British journalist and star of the controversial Netflix sequence Historical Apocalypse, has theorized — with out empirical proof — that Gobekli Tepe was constructed by a “misplaced civilization” worn out by an Ice Age cataclysm.

As soon as confined to the fringes, theories like Hancock’s have gained mainstream traction — thanks largely to Joe Rogan, whose massively in style podcast has grow to be a platform for various takes on science and historical past.

In November 2024, one other Gobekli Tepe conspiracy theorist, Jimmy Corsetti, a YouTuber and self-described “historical historical past investigator,” appeared on Rogan’s podcast, bringing with him a slew of speculations and wild theories concerning the website.

Amongst them, Corsetti accused archaeologists of deliberately dragging their ft and hiding key discoveries concerning the website.

“We’re speaking about pillars buried in grime. It is 2024. Do not inform me we do not have the expertise!” Corsetti informed Rogan.

Corsetti accused archaeologists of shifting slowly on function, maybe to protect the thriller and preserve the curious vacationers coming.

Solely a small proportion of the positioning has been dug up since excavations started within the mid-Nineteen Nineties. And with Rogan’s platform behind them, theorists like Corsetti have helped flip that sluggish progress right into a supply of worldwide suspicion.

A scientist responds

Lee Clare, an archaeologist who has led the excavation website for over a decade, has heard all of it — together with the outlandish theories.

Talking from his workplace in Istanbul, with the Bosporus glinting behind him, Clare shrugs off the conspiracists.

“A few of these guys go to the positioning for half an hour and assume they will clarify the entire website,” he says of the budding conspiracy theorists.

Relating to Gobekli Tepe, Clare says archaeologists aren’t hiding something. They’re attempting to guard it.

“You possibly can’t simply bulldoze a website to get the whole lot out. That is the improper method,” he says.

In different phrases, archaeology strikes slowly for a motive. Each layer tells a part of the story. And when you dig via every layer, it is gone for good, as are its secrets and techniques.

“Why would I be so egocentric as to dig your entire website … and take these potentialities away from future generations of archaeologists?”

Clare says he grew up enjoying with toy dinosaurs and all the time wished to be an archaeologist. He by no means anticipated to finish up the goal of conspiracy theories. However right here we’re.

“It goes onto the non-public stage as effectively,” he says, which is why he deleted his social media accounts.

“I need to keep sane on this state of affairs.”

12,000 years of storytelling

The true hazard right here is not simply misinformation, in keeping with Clare. It is that these competing narratives threat drowning out the true story, the one scientists have spent a long time attempting to correctly decode.

“There are lots of narratives on the market about Gobekli Tepe. The query is, whose narrative is right? And I feel we’ll by no means know.”

One of many few issues scientists do know for positive?

Gobekli Tepe is proof that people have been storytellers courting again a minimum of 12,000 years.

The carvings on the T-shaped pillars — the lions, foxes and arms — they’re all tales.

We simply do not know what they are saying. Gobekli Tepe will be the first place people come collectively to share that means.

And like all good tales, this one’s nonetheless open to interpretation.