2022 study: Gobekli Tepe pillars cut from single beds with flint tools

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Key facts

• The Firat formation limestone was relatively easy to work during the Early Holocene (also called the Greenlandian period), when the Fertile Crescent was exposed to wet conditions and the porous rock was water-saturated; when dry it becomes extremely hard.
• The thickest beds, ranging between about 90 and 130 cm, lie toward the top of the formation and are the ones suited to T-pillar extraction; the settlement and the quarries are at the same altitude.
• Quarrying began on sloping topography where bed thickness was visible, selecting an outcrop with bed thickness close to that of the intended pillar and free of flaws or vertical fissures.
• The top surface and one long side of the T-pillar could be shaped in situ from the rock exposure, while trenches were dug to outline the rest of the block down to the naturally flat bedding plane below, which served as the pillar's other face.
• Flint tools are found scattered around the quarry areas, and wooden wedges hammered into the bedding plane could have detached the block without cutting beneath it.
• Dislodging the pillar required wooden beams to lever it out, needing considerable strength, skill and manpower, after which it was moved to the construction site to be finished and carved.
• The 2022 geological study found no bedding boundaries within the pillars, proving each was taken from a single rock bed and quarried horizontally rather than vertically.
• The study indicates most T-pillars came from outcrops about 600 m northwest of the oval buildings, a distance the video says would still require an enormous effort, possibly with hundreds of people per pillar.
• The video speculates wooden sledges and planks may have been used for transport, a method it says is not established.

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