Deciphering the oldest calendar discovered in human history

The University of Edinburgh's media office announced that researcher Martin Sweetman has discovered the oldest calendar in human history, inscribed on a column at the ancient site of Gobekli Tepe in southern present-day Turkey.

The office points out that the calendar contains 365 days and is divided into 12 lunar months, making it the oldest lunar calendar discovered so far. It was found at the end of the last century during excavations in a building called “Building D,” which scientists believe was a temple or a primitive astronomical observatory.

The office's statement said: "The researcher analyzed the V-shaped inscriptions drawn on the column in Gobekli Tepe and discovered that each one represents a specific day and their sum means one solar year consisting of 365 days, 12 lunar months and 11 additional days."

It is noteworthy that the researcher discovered seven years ago, during his study of illustrations and columns found by archaeologists in the aforementioned building, that one of them depicts the fall of a comet that caused what is called a climate cooling 12-13 thousand years ago, but the scientific community was not convinced by this hypothesis, which forced the researcher to re-examine the images again.

In the image of column 43, Sweetman discovered a set of V symbols, which the ancients drew on bones to count the days. He concluded that this may be the oldest lunisolar calendar carved on a column, where each month, based on the number of V signs on the column, contains 29 or 30 days, which is equivalent to the time interval between two identical phases of the moon. Below this set is a row of 11 square shapes, which according to him express the number of lunar months in the solar year, and below this row are ten V symbols, representing extra days. The researcher believes that the V symbol on the bird's neck refers to the summer solstice.

According to him, what supports this hypothesis is that the central part of the two buildings "Building D" and "Building C" in Gobekli Tepe is surrounded by 11 stone columns in the shape of the letter T, each of which indicates one of the months of the year. This can be linked to Stonehenge, which is likely a stone "calendar" whose number of columns (30) represents the number of days of the month.

It is worth noting that Gobekli Tepe is an ancient settlement located in the south of modern Turkey, which existed 10-12 thousand years ago. Anthropologists consider it one of the oldest civilizations, religions and cultures on Earth. Since the middle of the last century, excavations have been ongoing. The information obtained by scientists has helped to discover many details about the emergence of agriculture, the first cities, arts, and the foundations of the state.