The great enclosures

A shared plan

The monuments at Göbeklitepe follow a recognisable scheme. Each enclosure is a roughly round or oval structure whose perimeter is formed of walls and stone benches studded with T-shaped limestone pillars. At the heart of each circle stand two larger central pillars, taller than those in the ring and often the most elaborately carved — frequently bearing arms, hands and a belt that mark them as stylised human, or human-like, figures.

Diameters of the excavated enclosures range from about 10 to 30 metres. At least four main enclosures — labelled A, B, C and D — have been uncovered, alongside later structures including a rectangular building (Enclosure H) from a younger phase. Each circle has its own character, named features and signature reliefs, even as they share this common architecture. Because only a fraction of the mound has been dug, more enclosures are expected to remain buried.

How to read an enclosure

Stand on the boardwalk above Enclosures C and D and the plan becomes legible. The outer wall is drystone, built up in courses without mortar. Inside it runs a low stone bench, and the ring pillars are set into wall and bench at intervals, their broad faces turned towards the centre. On the floor, apart from everything else, stand the two central pillars — the tallest stones, and the ones most likely to carry arms, hands and a belt.

The enclosures were not built once and left. Walls were added, pillars re-set, floors re-laid. Enclosure C in particular grew a series of concentric walls, one inside another, and Enclosure D shifted in a landslide late in its life. Reading the phases apart is much of the excavation’s work.

Round, oval or D-shaped?

You will see the great enclosures described as circular, as oval and sometimes as D-shaped, and all three are fair. None of them is a true circle. Enclosure B comes closest to round; C and D are ovals; and where later walls and benches were added to an older ring, or where the slope pushed the builders to straighten one side, the outline flattens on one edge and reads as a D. The lettering A to D, by the way, records the order of excavation, not the shape: Enclosure D is not called D because it is D-shaped, although it happens to be the best example of the flattened plan.

The rectangular buildings belong to a different, later phase. In the Pre-Pottery Neolithic B, structures such as Enclosure H are built on a rectangular plan with smaller pillars, and that shift from round to rectangular is one of the ways archaeologists tell the site’s phases apart.

Enclosure A — the snakes

Often called the “Snake Pillar Building,” Enclosure A is distinguished by its concentration of snake iconography, with sinuous serpents carved in relief across several pillars. It was among the first of the great circles to be investigated. Read about Enclosure A.

Enclosure B — the fox

Enclosure B is associated above all with the fox. Pillar 10 carries a fox relief, and fox sculptures were recovered here as well. The fox is one of the most frequently depicted creatures across the site as a whole. Read about Enclosure B.

Enclosure C — the largest

The biggest of the excavated enclosures, Enclosure C is wrapped in a series of concentric walls and features reliefs of wild boar and a powerful predator, notably on Pillars 12 and 27. Its scale gives a vivid sense of the labour these communal projects demanded. Read about Enclosure C.

Enclosure D — the best preserved

Enclosure D is the best-preserved and most elaborate of the four. Its twin central pillars, Pillars 18 and 31, stand around 5.5 metres tall and are clearly anthropomorphic, carved with arms, hands, a belt and what appears to be a fox-pelt loincloth — the T-shaped top reading as a head atop a body. Enclosure D also holds Pillar 43, the “Vulture Stone,” the site’s most discussed and debated relief. Read about Enclosure D.