The World’s Oldest Known Tin Mine

Somewhere around 5,000 years ago, men living in what is now Turkey learned to combine copper and tin to create bronze. But the source of the tin had long remained a mystery. Some thought it came from Cornwall in England, others believed it might have been brought in from what is now Afghanistan. But in 1994, a team led by Dr. Aslihan Yener of the University of Chicago announced the discovery what has proven to be the oldest known tin mine in the Taurus Mountains of Turkey.

The mine consists of a network of narrow tunnels and shafts. Analysis of artifacts, including skeletons of what are believed to be miners, shows that the mine was most active for about a thousand years beginning in approximately 2870 B.C. The Bronze Age is thought to have begun around 5,000 years ago, so this mine dates from the beginning of the revolutionary technology, which eventually replaced the use of stone for weapons and tools.

The ancient mine is located in rural Kestel in the Central Taurus Mountains. It had actually been discovered several years before Dr. Yener’s team published its findings, but the team waited several years while they recovered and analyzed evidence discovered at the mine itself and other material found in the surrounding area.

Bronze remained one of the most important metals for nearly 3,000 years. Eventually, however around 1100 B.C, ancient metallurgists learned to work iron, which was much stronger than bronze. Bronze remained important in the arts. Bronze statues are still being created today.

Was bronze discovered accidentally by a metalworker who was using contaminated copper, or was it created as the result of experimentation? We will probably never know the answer to that question.

There’s more information on the Kestrel tin mine here

Gobekli Tepe - The World’s Oldest Temple?

Believed to be more than 11,000 years old, Gobekli Tepe in southern Turkey is currently believed to be the world’s oldest temple. It is also a monument to the extraordinary artistic and engineering skills of its builders.

The Gobekli Tepe site is located near the Turkish city of Urfa. Only a tiny portion of the site has been excavated. So far excavators have found at least 20 stone rings, with one circle built inside another. These rings range from 30 to 100 feet (10 to 30) meters in diameter and are built with carefully carved limestone blocks.

The carving of the T-shaped blocks outlining the circles is strikingly precise, as are the sculptures of people and animals carved on the edges of both the blocks and the two 18-foot (5.5 m) tall pillars located in the center of the rings. So far, at least, no signs of living quarters have been found at Gobekli Tepe, and there are no hearths within the rings. It seems odd that even though there are signs that this structure was a major pilgrimage center, no one seems to have lived near it. Adding to the mystery, buildings dated at 14,000 to 15,000 years old were found at the base of the hill on which Gobekli Tepe is located.

Analysis of obsidian tools found at the site shows that the obsidian came from areas as far as 300 miles (500 km) away from the site. Experts are divided as to whether people actually came from that far away to visit the temple complex, or whether the obsidian was traded from far-away locations.
Gobekli Tepi is well designed and superbly executed. Its design and construction are remarkably advanced considering that it was supposedly constructed by hunter-gatherers. I do not believe that this technology emerged full-blown at Gobekli Tepi. I hope that archaeologists are searching for even earlier temple complexes that might reveal how the technology developed that eventually resulted in Gobekli Tepi. This beautiful and complex temple area is currently believed to be the oldest of its kind, but it seems fairly obvious that there may well be earlier examples still to be found.

There is a great site with information and photographs if you would like to explore further. Just visit here