Ancient Megalithic Structures - Gallery

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Megalith literally means “giant stone.” Megaliths around the world include Stonehenge, the Great Pyramids, the giant stone figures on Easter Island, the massive obelisks in Puma Punku, Bolivia, and the even bigger ones in Baalbek, Lebanon, and under the Temple Mount in Jerusalem. We’re talking about stonework all over the world so massive and precise that even using sophisticated modern technology, we COULD NOT DUPLICATE IT - or even come close!! Most of the Megalith Structures around the World have rocks that range from 5 tons to 350 tons (some go over a thousand tons!). We would like to kindly make you think how ABSURD it is to suppose that primitive people using primitive tools could carve, cut, move and lift this massive stones into place. It really remains us to think that perhaps ancient civilizations had some kind of extraterrestrial help. either lifting these stones for them or providing them with the tools and knowledge, so they could do it themselves. The mysterious unexplained megaliths structures around the world may have been planned and constructed with the help of ancient aliens or some as-of-yet forgotten/undiscovered technology used by mankind in our distant past.

Here we are presenting the most famous ancient megaliths structures around the world, of course, there many more and many others yet to be discovered, Enjoy it!

Easter Island (Ocean Pacific) - 1,000 years old

Teotihuacan (Mexico) - 2,000 years old

Chichen Itza (Mexico) - 2,000 years old

Tiahuanacu (Bolivia) - 17,000 years old

Nazca Lines (Peru) - 2,000 years old

Ollantaytambo (Peru) - 10,000 years old

Sacsayhuaman (Peru) - 1,000 years old

Machu Picchu (Peru) - 4,000 years old

Stonehenge (England) - 5,000 years old

Pyramid of Giza (Egypt) - 5,000 years old

Temple of Hatshepsut (Egypt) - 3,460 years old

Baalbeck (Lebanon) - 10,000 years old

Kailasa Temple (India) - 1,200 years old

Khajuraho Temple (India) - 1,000 years old

Yonaguni Island (Japan) - 14,000 years old

Gobekli Tepe (Turkey) - 12,000 years old

Easter Island (Pacific Ocean) - 1,000 years old

One of the world's most famous yet least visited archaeological sites, Easter Island is a small, hilly, now treeless island of volcanic origin. Located in the Pacific Ocean at 27 degrees south of the equator and some 2200 miles (3600 kilometers) off the coast of Chile, it is considered to be the world's most remote inhabited island. Sixty-three square miles in size and with three extinct volcanoes (the tallest rising to 1674 feet), the island is, technically speaking, a single massive volcano rising over ten thousand feet from the Pacific Ocean floor. The oldest known traditional name of the island is Te Pito o Te Henua, meaning The Center (or Navel) of the World. In the 1860s Tahitian sailors gave the island the name Rapa Nui, meaning Great Rapa, due to its resemblance to another island in Polynesia called Rapa Iti, meaning Little Rapa. The island received its most well known current name from the Dutch sea captain Jacob Roggeveen, who, on Easter Sunday, April 5, 1722, became the first European to visit.

The barren lands and social strife that Admiral Roggeveen reported during his visit in 1722 make it difficult to imagine the extraordinary culture that had flowered on the island during the previous 1400 years. That culture's most famous features are its enormous stone statues called moai, at least 288 of which once stood upon massive stone platforms called ahu. There are some 250 of these ahu platforms spaced approximately one half mile apart and creating an almost unbroken line around the perimeter of the island. Another 600 moai statues, in various stages of completion, are scattered around the island, either in quarries or along ancient roads between the quarries and the coastal areas where the statues were most often erected. Nearly all the moai are carved from the tough stone of the Rano Raraku volcano. The average statue is 14 feet, 6 inches tall and weighs 14 tons. Some moai were as large as 33 feet and weighed more than 80 tons (one statue only partially quarried from the bedrock was 65 feet long and would have weighed an estimated 270 tons).
Read more at: http://www.world-mysteries.com/easter_island.htm

Teotihuacan (Mexico) - 2,000 years old

Teotihuacan means 'The City of the Gods", or "Where Men Become Gods" (in Nahuatl). It is located in the valley of the same name 30 miles north of Mexico City.The Pyramid of the Sun, built in the 2nd century AD, dominates the landscape of the ancient city of Teotihuacan in Mexico.It is the third largest pyramid in the world and the largest in the Teotihuacan complex. This sacred, truncated edifice stood 210 feet high and 650 feet square, a vast pyramid of rubble, adobe mud, and earth all faced with stone. A wooden temple on the summit of the pyramid afforded a spectacular view of the sprawling city below.

The pyramid is actually a succession of pyramids built one on top the other over the centuries. The pyramids and many other structures at Teotihuacan are stepped, rather than smooth sided like the Egyptian pyramids, and the stones of which they are made are not as large as stones used to build Egyptian pyramids. The Moon Pyramid is located at the northern end of the Avenue of the Dead, which is the main axis of the city. The pyramid, facing south, was built as the principal monument of the Moon Pyramid complex. The Ciudadela is a huge enclosure located at the geographic center of the city. It measures about 400 m on a side (i.e. about 160,000 m2), and the interior space is surrounded by four large platforms surmounted by pyramids. Mysterious Layout of Teotihuacn: The city of Teotihuacn is meticulously laid out on a grid which is offset 15º.5 from the cardinal points. Its main avenue, the "Street of the Dead," runs from 15º.5 east of north to 15º.5 west of south, while its most impressive structure, the Pyramid of the Sun, is directly oriented to a point 15º.5 north of west -- the position at which the sun sets on August 13. Several attempts had been made to explain the layout of Teotihuacn by means of astronomy

Chichen Itza (Mexico) - 2,000 years old

"The Castle", aka "The Pyramid of Kukulkan", or the "Pyramid of Quetzalcoatl" (another name for Kukulkan from the Toltecs) believed to be built before 800 AD, is easily the most impressive and widely recognized of the structures in Chichn Itz or indeed anywhere in the Mayan region. A true masterpiece of the Toltec-Mayan architectural genius. "El Castillo" ("castle" in Spanish) sheds light on the Mayans impressive astronomical knowledge. It is, in reality, a solar calendar. There are 91 steps on each side and 1 for the roof/altar. Each day's shadows fall upon a different step.
It was surely the place where the ceremony of the descent of Kukulkan was held. The pyramid has special astronomical layout so that a game of light and shadow is formed. On March 21st the body of the serpent metaphorically descends from the temple on top of the pyramid and arrives at the heads at the foot of the staircase.

--> It reveals the nine tiers, split by the stairway to give 18 smaller tier sections, the same as the number of months in the Mayan calendar.
--> It shows the twenty six rectangular panels on either side of the stairway (about three or four per tier). Adding to fifty-two panels, the same as the number of years in a Mayan cycle.
--> Though not feasable to show here, there are 91 steps on each of the four stairways leading up to the top of the structure with a common step at the top to all four sides, leading to a total of 365 steps... same as the number of days in a year.
--> An overhead view of the structure shows that it is skewed exactly 18 degrees, same as the number of months in the calendar.

Tiahuanaco - Puma Punku (Bolivia) - 17,000 years old

Tiahuanacu (also called Tiwanaku) is a mystery because of its age (estimated to be 17,000 years) and the peculiar stone technology.
Puma Punku, truly startles the imagination. It seems to be the remains of a great wharf (for Lake Titicaca long ago lapped upon the shores of Tiahuanaco) and a massive, four-part, now collapsed building. One of the construction blocks from which the pier was fashioned weighs an estimated 440 tons (equal to nearly 600 full-size cars) and several other blocks laying about are between 100 and 150 tons. The quarry for these giant blocks was on the western shore of Titicaca, some ten miles away. There is no known technology in all the ancient world that could have transported stones of such massive weight and size. The Andean people of 500 AD, with their simple reed boats, could certainly not have moved them. Even today, with all the modern advances in engineering and mathematics, we could not fashion such a structure.
The largest of these stone blocks is 7.81 meters long, 5.17 meters wide, averages 1.07 meters thick, and is estimated to weigh about 131 metric tons. The second largest stone block found within the Pumapunka is 7.90 meters long, 2.50 meters wide, and averages 1.86 meters thick. Its weight has been estimated to be 85.21 metric tons. How were these monstrous stones moved and what was their purpose?
Posnansky suggested an answer, based upon his studies of the astronomical alignments of Tiahuanaco, but that answer is considered so controversial, even impossible, that it has been ignored and censured by the scientific community for fifty years. .

Nazca Lines (Peru) - 2,000 years old

Nazca Lines are the most outstanding group of geoglyphs in the world. Etched in the surface of the desert pampa sand about 300 hundred figures made of straight lines, geometric shapes and pictures of animals and birds - and their patterns are only clearly visible from the air.
The high desert of Peru holds one of the most mystifying monuments of the known world—the massive-scale geoglyphs known as the Nasca Lines. Ranging from geometric patterns to “drawings” of different animals and stylized human-like forms. The ancient lines can only be truly taken in, their forms discerned, from high in the air, leaving generations mystified as to how these precise works could’ve been completed long before the documented invention of human flight. Are the lines signs left by an alien race? Landing strips for UFOs? Relics of a ancient people far more advanced—capable of human flight—then previously imagined?
Etched, as if by giants, onto the arid moonscape of Peru’s southern desert lies one of man’s greatest mysteries; the Nasca Lines. More than 15,000 geometric and animal-like patterns have been discovered criss-crossing the pampas like a vast puzzle. Who built them and what was their purpose? Ancient racetracks, landing strips for aliens, or perhaps a giant astronomical calendar? And are the Lines connected to the gruesome discovery of large cache’s of severed human heads. Are they ancient road maps or messages for visiting aliens? Lying at the foothill of Peru's Andes Mountains is the site of one of the world's greatest mysteries. Etched, as if by giants, onto its arid, moonscape plains are immense lines that stretch for miles, forming strange shapes recognizable only from the air. Now, a team of specialists from around the globe has come to southern Peru to investigate the Nasca Lines in the hope of uncovering their secrets.

Ollantaytambo (Peru) - 10,000 years old

At the northern end of the Sacred Valley, Ollantaytambo is rare if not unique in Peru. Ollantaytambo is a massive citadel located 50 kilometers from Machu Picchu. The citadel served as both a temple and a fortress. At some time unknown, and for reasons unknown, work mysteriously stopped on this huge project.
The main quarries of Ollantaytambo were located at Kachiqhata, in a ravine across the Urubamba River some 5 kilometers from the town. The site features three main quarrying areas: Mullup'urku, Kantirayoq, and Sirkusirkuyoq; all of them provided blocks of rose rhyolite for the elaborate buildings of the Temple Hill. An elaborate network of roads, ramps, and slides connected them with the main building areas.

"How were such titanic blocks of stone brought to the top of the mountain from the quarries many miles away? How were they cut and fitted? How were they raised and put in place? Now one knows, no one can even guess. There are archaeologists, scientists, who would have us believe that the dense, hard andesite rock was cut, surfaced and faced by means of stone or bronze tools. Such an explanation is so utterly preposterous that it is not even worthy of serious consideration. No one ever has found anywhere any stone tool or implement that would cut or chip the andesite, and no bronze ever made will make any impression upon it."

Sacsayhuaman (Peru) - 1,000 years old

The archaeological park is located north of the city of Cuscoco and covers an area of 3,094 hectares. It contains more than 200 archaeological sites. Leading to Saqsaywaman there are two paved roads, one starts in the old and traditional neighbourhood of San Cristobal and is about 1.5 kilometers long and the other road begins at Avenida Collasuyo and is 4 kilometers long.
Still today, many people believe in the inability of ancient Quechuas to create such a wonder, so they suggest that they were made by beings of some other worlds, extraterrestrial beings with superior technology that made all that possible.
One of the most imposing architectonic complexes inherited from the Incan Society is Sacsayhuaman, which because of several of its qualities is considered as one of the best monuments that mankind built on the earth's surface.
The wall or rampart is the most impressive section, built with enormous carved limestone boulders, this construction has a broken line that faces to the main plaza called Chuquipampa which is a slope with 25 angles and 60 walls. The biggest carved boulder of the first wall weighs about 70 tons and like all of the other rocks was brought from a quarry called Sisicancha, three kilometers away and where there are still rocks that were transported part of the way. Each wall is made up of 10 fronts with the most important ones known as Rumipunco, tiupunku, Achuanpunku and Viracocha punku. The stones fit so perfectly that no blade of grass or steel can slide between them. There is no mortar. They often join in complex and irregular surfaces that would appear to be a nightmare for the stonemason.

Machu Picchu (Peru) - 4,000 years old

Machu Picchu lies in the southern hemisphere, some 13 degrees south of the equator. It is 80 kilometers northwest of Cusco, on the crest of the mountain Machu Picchu, located about 2,450 metres (8,040 ft) above mean sea level, over 1,000 metres (3,300 ft) lower than Cusco, which has an altitude of 3,600 metres (11,800 ft).Incwalls show numerous design details that also help protect them from collapsing in an earthquake. Doors and windows are trapezoidal and tilt inward from bottom to top; corners usually are rounded; inside corners often incline slightly into the rooms; and "L"-shaped blocks often were used to tie outside corners of the structure together. These walls do not rise straight from bottom to top but are offset slightly from row to row. The Incas never used the wheel in any practical manner. Its use in toys demonstrates that the principle was well-known to them, although it was not applied in their engineering. The lack of strong draft animals as well as terrain and dense vegetation issues may have rendered it impractical. How they moved and placed enormous blocks of stones remains a mystery, although the general belief is that they used hundreds of men to push the stones up inclined planes. A few of the stones still have knobs on them that could have been used to lever them into position; it is believed that after the stones were placed, the Incas would have sanded the knobs away, but a few were overlooked.
Hiram Bingham was told of a plant whose juices softened rock so that the surfaces would join perfectly.
Eric Von Daniken, in his series of books beginning with Chariots of the Gods theorized that the Andean stoneworks were built by Alien/Gods who visited the earth long ago, bringing civilization to primitive man. The scientific community simply snickered.Whatever one thinks of his theories, he brought to the public an awareness of the many ancient monuments on earth that seem to defy rational explanation.

Stonehenge (England) - 5,000 years old

Stonehenge is a megalithic monument on the Salisbury Plain in Southern England, composed mainly of thirty upright stones (sarsens, each over ten feet tall and weighing 26 tons), aligned in a circle, with thirty lintels (6 tons each) perched horizontally atop the sarsens in a continuous circle. There is also an inner circle composed of similar stones, also constructed in post-and-lintel fashion. Constructed without the use of draft animals and shaped by stone tools, Stonehenge was erected many miles from the quarry from which the stones came. It is an amazing feat of engineering, and many stories, both old ones and retellings, frequently name Merlin as this engineer.

However, the archaeological evidence at Stonehenge simply does not support an Arthurian date of construction. The archaeology points to a construction date between 5,000 and 3,000 years ago (more than likely, several construction dates over this time). Stonehenge is angled such that on the equinoxes and the solstices, the sun rising over the horizon appears to be perfectly placed between gaps in the megaliths. This is doubtless not an accident, and probably contributed to the stories of its mysterious origins. Gerald Hawkins, a Professor of Astronomy, concluded that Stonehenge was a sophisticated astronomical observatory designed to predict eclipses (Stonehenge Decoded). The positioning of the stones provides a wealth of information, as does the choice of the site itself. If you can see the alignment, general relationship, and the use of these stones then you will know the reason for the construction. The author, and other astronomers, discovered the 56-year cycle of eclipses by decoding Stonehenge! The movement of stones once each year from an initial fixed position allows to predict accurately every important lunar event for hundreds of years. This computer would need resetting about once every 300 years by advancing the stones by one space. Mankind generally used the cycle of the moon as a unit of timekeeping.

Pyramid of Giza (Egypt) - 5,000 years old

The Great Pyramid of Giza (also called the Khufu's Pyramid, Pyramid of Khufu, and Pyramid of Cheops) is the oldest and largest of the three pyramids in the Giza Necropolis bordering what is now Cairo, Egypt, and is the only one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World that survives substantially intact. Originally the Great Pyramid was covered by casing stones that formed a smooth outer surface, and what is seen today is the underlying core structure. Some of the casing stones that once covered the structure can still be seen around the base. There have been varying scientific and alternative theories regarding the Great Pyramid's construction techniques. The base originally measured about 230.33m square. The original height was 146.59m. The Pyramid lies in the center of gravity of the continents. It also lies in the exact center of all the land area of the world, dividing the earth's land mass into approximately equal quarters. The north-south axis (31 degrees east of Greenwich) is the longest land meridian, and the east-west axis (30 degrees north) is the longest land parallel on the globe. There is obviously only one place that these longest land-lines of the terrestrial earth can cross, and it is at the Great Pyramid! This is incredible, one of the scores of features of this mighty structure which begs for a better explanation.
--> A total of over 2,300,000 (or only 590,712)* blocks of limestone and granite were used in its construction with the average block weighing 2.5 tons and none weighing less than 2 tons. The large blocks used in the ceiling of the King's Chamber weigh as much as 9 tons. The estimated total weight of the structure is 6.5 million tons!

Temple of Queen Hatshepsut (Egypt) - 3,460 years old

Located on the western bank of the Nile (or in Western Thebes, the great capital of Egypt during the New Kingdom), this is one of the most beautiful of the royal mortuary temples. The terraces were different then, with gardens of frankincense trees and other rare plantings brought from Punt, a place that appears in painted reliefs decorating the walls of one of the colonnades.
The site chosen by Hatshepsut for her temple was the product of precise strategic calculations: it was situated not only in a valley considered sacred for over 500 years to the principal feminine goddess connected with the funeral world, but also on the axis of the temple of Amun of Karnak, and finally, it stood at a distance of only a few hundred meters in a straight line from the tomb that the queen had ordered excavated for herself in the Valley of the Kings on the other side of the mountain". The Mortuary Temple of Hatshepsut is one of the most beautiful of all of the temples of Ancient Egypt. It is located at Deir el-Bahri ("the Northern Monastery"), at the head of the valley beneath the peak of the mountain (and natural pyramid) "Dehent" (now known by its arabic name, el-Qurn - "The Horn"). Hatshepsut´s temple was named "Djeser-djeseru" ("holy of holies"). It sits directly against the rock which forms a natural amphitheatre around it so that the temple itself seems to grow from the living rock. The design of the temple echoes that of the Mortuary Temple of Montuhotep which is its neighbour. There is also a mortuary temple dedicated to Thuthmosis III and a number of Ptolemaic burials in the vicinity. Apparently, there used to be a mudbrick temple dedicated to Amenhotep I and Queen Ahmose Nefertari, but it was destroyed to make way for Hatshepsut's temple.

Baalbeck (Lebanon) - 10,000 years old

Baalbeck is a city in eastern Lebanon famous chiefly for its magnificent, excellently preserved Roman temple ruins. It was a flourishing Phoenician town when the Greeks occupied it in 331 B.C. They renamed it "Heliopolis" (City of the Sun) .
It became a Roman colony under the Emperor Augustus in 16 B.C..On its acropolis, over the course of the next three centuries, the Romans constructed a monumental ensemble of three temples, three coutyards, and an enclosing wall built of some of the most gigantic stones ever crafted by man. Some tourists believe that the construction can only be attributed to extra-terrestial artwork . At the southern entrance of Baalbeck is a quarry where the stones used in the temples were cut. A huge block, considered the largest hewn stone in the world, still sits where it was cut almost 2,000 years ago. Called the "Stone of the Pregnant Woman", it is 21.5m x 4.8m x 4.2meters in size and weighs an estimated 1,000 tons.

The complex of the Great Temple has four sections: the monumental entrance or Propylaea, the Hexagonal Court, the Great Court and finally the Temple itself, where the six famous columns stand. The Temple of Jupiter is one of the most impressive Temples in Baalbeck. It measures 88x48 meters and stands on a podium 13 meters above the surrounding terrain and 7 meters above the courtyard. It is reached by a monumental stairway. Originally surrounded by 54 external columns, most of these now lie in fragments on the ground. The six standing columns are joined by an entablature decorated with a frieze of bulls and lions' heads connected by garlands. The Podium is built with some of the largest stone blocks ever hewn. On the west side of the podium is the "Trilithon", a celebrated group of three enormous stones weighing about 800 tons each.

Kailasa Temple (India) - 1,200 years old

The Kailasa or the Kailasanatha, is the unrivaled centerpiece of Ellora. This is designed to recall Mount Kailash, the abode of Lord Shiva – looks like a freestanding, multi-storeyed temple complex, but it was carved out of one single rock, and covers an area double the size of Parthenon in Athens
The scale at which the work was undertaken is enormous. It covers twice the area of the Parthenon in Athens and is 1.5 times high, and it entailed removing 200,000 tonnes of rock. The rear wall of its excavated courtyard 276 feet (84 m) 154 feet (47 m) is 100 ft (33 m) high. The temple proper is 164 feet (50 m) deep, 109 feet (33 m) wide, and 98 feet (30 m) high.

Ajanta Caves (more properly Ajujnthi), a village in the erstwhile dominions of the Nizam of Hyderabad in India and now in Buldhana district in the state of Maharashtra (N. lat. 20 deg. 32' by E. long. 75 deg. 48') is celebrated for its cave hermitages and halls. Located 99-km from Aurangabad, Maharashtra, Ajanta encompasses 29 rock-cut rooms created between 200 BC and AD 650 using rudimentary hand tools. Most are viharas (living quarters), while four are chaityas (temples).

Ellora Caves , village in E central Maharashtra state, India, extending more than 1.6 km on a hill, are 34 rock and cave temples (5th–13th century).

Khajuraho Temple (India) - 1,000 years old

Khajuraho has the largest group of medieval Hindu and Jain temples, famous for their erotic sculpture. Both internally and externally the temples are richly carved with excellent sculptures that are frequently sensual and, at times, sexually explicit. The temples are grouped into three geographical divisions: western, eastern and southern. The Khajuraho temples are made of sandstone, they didn't use mortar the stones were put together with mortise and tenon joints and they were held in place by gravity. This form of construction requires very precise joints. The columns and architraves were built with megaliths that weighed up to 20 tons. These temples of Khajuraho have sculptures that look very realistic and are studied even today.

The scale at which the work was undertaken is enormous. It covers twice the area of the Parthenon in Athens and is 1.5 times high, and it entailed removing 200,000 tonnes of rock. The rear wall of its excavated courtyard 276 feet (84 m) 154 feet (47 m) is 100 ft (33 m) high. The temple proper is 164 feet (50 m) deep, 109 feet (33 m) wide, and 98 feet (30 m) high.

The Khajuraho temples do not contain sexual or erotic art inside the temple or near the deities; however, some external carvings bear erotic art. Also, some of the temples that have two layers of walls have small erotic carvings on the outside of the inner wall. There are many interpretations of the erotic carvings. They portray that, for seeing the deity, one must leave his or her sexual desires outside the temple.

Yonaguni Island (Japan) - 14,000 years old

The Yonaguni Monument is a massive underwater rock formation off the coast of Yonaguni, the southernmost of the Ryukyu Islands, in Japan. While many archaeologists and geologists believe that it is a natural formation, some hold the view that some of its features are man-made (being that impossible, would suggest extra terretrial intervention). In 1986, a diver near the island of Yonaguni Jima, off the southern tip of Japan (around Okinawa) came across some strange structures about 25 metres below sea level. They appeared to be stepped structures with terraces and ramps. One of the largest pyramid structures is 600 feet wide and 90 feet high –with five separate levels of stone blocks with what appears to be road surrounding the structure. Tool marks and carvings have been discovered upon the stones (and documented) which indicate that they have were constructed rather than being natural stone structures.

Others have estimated that the structure is far older – including Teruaki Ishii, professor of geology at Tokyo University who determined that the submergence occurred at the end of the last ice age – which was around ten thousand years ago (over twice as old as the pyramids in Egypt) – If this is the case, then our history books would have to be revised to take into account an advanced Eastern culture, more advanced than any early Western culture.

It is interesting to note that a number of tools have been discovered both on land and in the sea around the structures. Close to the pyramid structure, what is thought to be the carving of a human head has been discovered (several feet tall), along with numerous unknown hieroglyphs

Gobekli Tepe (Turkey) - 12,000 years old

Göbeklitepe is the oldest site of worship yet discovered. It is so old that predates the history of settled human life. It is pre-pottery, pre-writing, pre-everything. Gobeklitepe temple complex predates (9,000 years before) the Pyramids of Giza and (6,000 years before) the Stonehenge. The site draws on questioning and rewriting the theory of human evolution.The astonishing discoveries at Gobeklitepe have long been a talking among academics. Stratification layers suggests several millennia of activity, perhaps reaching back to the Mesolithic. Geophysical surveys indicate the existence of 16 additional structures. The site, currently undergoing excavation by German and Turkish archaeologists, was erected by hunter-gatherers in the 10th millennium BC (ca. 11,500 years ago), before the advent of sedentism. Gobekli Tepe is certainly an interesting place and whether you believe in ancient alien involvement or not this is a fascinating glimpse into our own ancient past. A series of megaliths in this site indicate civilization may have existed much earlier than previously thought.

Gobekli Tepe was the only one of these monuments that seemed to be deliberately hidden. Why? How did it remain undiscovered for so long?

It was always assumed that the workforce required to construct a megalithic stone circle could not be organized until human society had reached the village stage of development in the early Neolithic, when local chieftains need not have looked very far for enough serious muscle power to build a large stone structure. Most stone pillars at Göbekli Tepe weigh 10 to 20 tons, the largest are 50 tons and the most distant quarry was 500m distant. The stone T-shaped monoliths are 3m high, although the one in the center of each circle is taller. The largest pillar is 9m high and was found unfinished in the nearby quarry.

It will be many years to come before the excavation of Gobekli Tepe is completed. Schmidt doubts highly he will see the end of it in his lifetime and has left some of it intentionally untouched for future archaeologists with more sophisticated equipment to work with. Perhaps when all is said and done, more answers will be revealed as to how humans evolved, and what (if any) connection there is to planets outside Earth.