Discover the World’s Oldest Sanctuary: Göbeklitepe Exhibition Opens in Berlin

Published on September 23, 2025

Suspended between hills in southeastern Turkey, Göbeklitepe, acclaimed as the earliest known monumental sanctuary, has secured its place as a UNESCO World Heritage Site and will soon traverse the continent. In 2026, the German capital will host a landmark exhibition, “Myths on Stone: Göbeklitepe and the World of the Last Hunters,” allowing European scholars and the public alike to engage with the story of a settlement that predates known agriculture and monumental architecture. The display will present a well-focused assemblage of ninety-six artefacts, each expressly chosen to elucidate the ceremonial, technological, and artistic innovations of the site, thereby bringing the central Neolithic epoch into resolute view.

Labelled the “first temple” of humanity, Göbeklitepe has provided the scholarly community with fresh perspectives on the social and ritual horizons of the earliest settled peoples. To extend knowledge and appreciation of Turkish heritage beyond national boundaries, the exhibition promises to unite archaeology, mythology, and early artistic expression, emphasising how the monuments once functioned as focal points for collective ritual. Visitors will thereby confront the material expression of foundational cultural behaviour thousands of years before the rise of literate civilisations, gaining important insight into the formative religious behaviours that have structured human society.

Göbeklitepe: A Millennial Perspective on Early Socioreligious Complexity

Göbeklitepe rises on the arid plateau of southeastern Anatolia, a short drive from modern Şanlıurfa. Dated to the ninth millennium BCE, its layered occupation thrusts aside long-held chronologies: here a monumental architectural complex builder-made, long predating Egypt’s pyramids by seven thousand years. Now the region’s prehistoric history and the broader narrative of the Neolithic period must be rewritten from the ground up.

Structured as a series of concentric enclosures, the site served a congregational and ceremonial function well before sedentary subsistence. Each megalithic T-shaped pillar weighs several tonnes, and on many surviving vertical faces are reliefs of boars, foxes, and stylistic motifs interpreted as totemic signatures. The compositions attest both to the deft controlling of great stone, and to the sophisticated social hierarchy that marshalled labour, theological doctrine, and the visual arts long before the advent of monumental earthly and architectural constraints.

For millennia, farmers gradually assuaged the tell mounds that sealed the finds, and Göbeklitepe retreated into the Palaeolithic horizon as a mute scar. Renewed soil profiles during systematic excavations of the early 1990s, however, gradually revealed the core sanctuaries and the sheer density of symbolic stone. Since the enclosures’ nästan essences came to light, the site has ensorceled a growing international community of epigraphers, paleoclimatologists, and informed public, foremost in redefining the Neolithic longue durée on an open site.

The Berlin Exhibition: Bringing Göbeklitepe to a European Audience

Planned to open in 2026, Berlin’s forthcoming museum presentation intends to introduce European travellers and scholars alike to the marvels of Göbeklitepe. “Myths on Stone: Göbeklitepe and the World of the Last Hunters” will comprise ninety-six carefully selected artefacts—obsidian tools, anthropomorphic sculptures, and vividly carved reliefs—that illuminate the rhythms and convictions of the ancient builders. Curators will supplement the display with interactive media detailing the excavations still underway in southern Anatolia and how the site reconfigures our understanding of prehistoric societies.

Hosted in one of Berlin’s foremost cultural institutions, the exhibition delivers a focused venue for engaging with a pivotal moment in the longue durée of human history. Beyond the objects themselves, interpretive zones will reconstruct the broad cultural landscape of the time, articulating the diverse significance of carved iconography and the monumental architecture at Göbeklitepe for the ascent of humanity’s first settled communities.

Expanding Turkish Heritage Outreach to the European Travel Market

The Berlin exposition announces the latest component of Turkey’s strategic campaign to project its ancient cultural and historical legacy across Europe. Organised under the auspices of the Ministry of Culture and Tourism, the event builds on the rapid growth of Göbeklitepe into a central axis on the Turkish visitor circuit. Presentation of the site’s celebrated material within leading European venues serves to amplify scholarly and popular understanding and progressively directs tourist flows to the country.

The Berlin show thereby serves dual functions. German and wider European audiences gain immediate access to the archaeological depth of Göbeklitepe without committing to transcontinental travel, while prospective travellers receive a pragmatic tutorial on embedding the site into forthcoming Turkish itineraries. Accompanied catalogues and digital platforms further extend the learning, ensuring exposure precedes the visit and influences programme planning.

Long-term cultural dialogue between Turkey and Europe is underscored by the Berlin programme. Presentation of the site within a European capital anticipates wider circulations of Turkish material and expertise, narratively and commercially anchoring the region within a rapidly consolidating cultural tourism circuit. The event positions Turkey not merely as an archaeological provider, but as a European dialogue partner.

Cultural tourism comprises an increasingly vital dimension of international travel, with contemporary travellers frequently expressing a desire to visit sites of antiquity and to acquire a nuanced historical context. Göbeklitepe, distinguished by its remarkable antiquity and exceptional archaeological standing, exemplifies the global cultural heritage that contemporary visitors find compelling. The attendant exhibition therefore serves a dual purpose, imparting knowledge of the site’s narrative while simultaneously motivating attendance in Turkey for direct engagement with its cultural monuments.

Beyond the Berlin exhibition, Göbeklitepe itself solidifies its status as an essential travel objective within Turkey. Situated in proximity to Şanlıurfa, a city long celebrated for its layered historical and cultural resources, the archaeological circle invites guests to review its deeply recessed megaliths and to apprehend the broader topography that shelters complementary historic features. Among them, the Balıklıgöl Sanctuary, with its storied pool and sacred tilapia, and the atmospheric fabric of Şanlıurfa’s antiquarian Old Town, collectively offer rich occasions for further exploration and contextual enrichment.

Şanlıurfa represents a crucial junction of cultural and historical narrative in southeastern Turkey, where the weight of antiquity and the pulse of contemporary life coexist. Beyond the revelations of Göbeklitepe, travellers may wander through labyrinthine bazaars, enter quiet courtyards of centuries-old mosques, and engage with contemporary museum holdings—experiences exemplary of the deep and continuing cultural fabric of the region. The interplay of monumental sites, daily Şanlıurfa life, and the surrounding geometrical folds of the landscape creates, for the discerning visitor, an encounter with the abiding and, at times, uncensored essence of Turkey.

Final Recommendation: Essential Viewing for the Historically Inclined

Scheduled for 2026 in Berlin, the exhibition “Myths on Stone: Göbeklitepe and the World of the Last Hunters” supplies an unparalleled context for a broader European audience to engage with the implications of Göbeklitepe. As a major global archaeological touchstone, the display is poised to distil emergent knowledge about the earliest forms of communal memory and ritual life, and to trace the auxiliary developments of successive eras. Anticipating a visit to the original site itself remains indispensable for informed tourists; the continuing fabric of Şanlıurfa and the monumental questions posed by Göbeklitepe guarantee an encounter that is at once scholarly and deeply personal.