I don’t usually read the Travel pages (travel and food being the opiates of the chattering classes) but this stood out yesterday. Gobekli Tepe, in Turkey, is one of the new-old wonders of the world. Discovered only in 1994, this amazing site rewrites history by demonstrating monumental architecture at the dawn of agriculture, around 11,000 years ago. Most notable is that the huge limestone slabs are decorated in ways that already prefigure Egyptian or Assyrian art. The archaeologists are still working out what it all means. It is a vital link in the human story and one day the name will pass people’s lips as readily as do Stonehenge and the Pyramids.
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