Göbekli Tepe · Şanlıurfa, Türkiye · The "Rock Temple" (Felsentempel)
Enclosure E
PPN (older layer, by association) · cut into the living bedrock · pillars gone · two rock-cut pedestals survive
Cut straight into the natural bedrock rather than built up from separate stones. Enclosure E's pillars are gone — but the rock-cut pedestals that once held its central pair survive, which is exactly why it matters.
The "Rock Temple": a smoothed floor worked directly into the living limestone, with a curved, spiral-like basin and cup-holes cut into it, on the open plateau. Photo: DAI, Göbekli Tepe Project.
Because Enclosure E is exposed on the open plateau rather than protected by fill, its features are weathered — it is easier to say that they were deliberately cut than exactly what each was for.
01
Quick facts
Enclosure E is best treated cautiously: so little of its superstructure remains that its full plan has not been recovered, and it should not be reconstructed as if it were as complete as C or D. This page deliberately stops where the recovered evidence stops.
Period
Pre-Pottery Neolithic (older layer, by association)by association
Construction
cut directly into the natural bedrock
Pillars
none survive
Surviving features
two rock-cut pedestals with tub-shaped hollows; carved floor, basins and cup-holes
Also called
the "Rock Temple" (Felsentempel)
The bedrock construction, the missing pillars and the two rock-cut pedestals are established; the date rests on association with the other enclosures rather than a direct measurement, and the full plan, and the size and decoration of the lost pillars, are unknown.
02
The architecture
The structure long known informally as the "Rock Temple" is numbered Enclosure E in the formal record. What makes it unusual is that it was cut out of the natural bedrock rather than built up from separate stones — so instead of standing walls and uprights, its clearest surviving evidence is worked directly into the rock surface. The key feature is a pair of pedestals cut from the bedrock, each with an oval, tub-shaped hollow, identified as the bases for two now-lost central pillars — the sockets in which a central pair once stood.
Excavation plan of the main enclosures (A–F). Enclosure E is drawn top-left (dashed box): an oval outline enclosing two small rectangles — the rock-cut pedestal sockets where the central pair once stood — with no numbered pillars, because none survive. Plan: after the Göbekli Tepe Project (DAI).
Key to the building — The two pedestal sockets the pair of bedrock-cut pedestals with tub-shaped hollows, shown as the two small rectangles inside E's outline — the bases for a lost central pair. No pillars unlike A–D and F, E carries no numbered pillars on the plan: its uprights are gone, and the sockets are what remains. Rock-cut floor & basins a smoothed floor worked into the living limestone, with a spiral-like basin and cup-holes cut around it (shown below).
The reading of the pedestals as pillar sockets is not a guess in isolation: it rests on comparison with Enclosures C and D, where central-pillar pairs were found still standing in exactly this kind of bedrock-cut base.
03
The rock-cut features
The exposed rock surface carries more than the sockets. A smoothed floor was worked directly into the living limestone, and around it are carved hollows — a curved, spiral-like basin and small cup-holes cut into the rock. The same living rock of the plateau shows how the site's builders worked stone directly: rows of cup-like hollows pecked to loosen and free blocks, and larger basins cut straight into the bedrock. Because these features sit on the open plateau rather than under protective fill, they are weathered.
Rows of cup-like hollows pecked into the bedrock near Enclosure E, where blocks were being loosened and levered free — the quarrying process recorded directly in the rock. Bedrock working on the ridge; location "near Enclosure E" per the site owner, not independently confirmed.A basin cut straight into the living bedrock of the hilltop — the same worked rock from which the enclosure's floor and pedestals were shaped. Bedrock working on the ridge; location "near Enclosure E" per the site owner, not independently confirmed.
04
Why it matters
The point of Enclosure E
Enclosure E shows that the central-pair plan of the great enclosures could be realised by carving into living rock, not only by raising free-standing stones. It extends the site's architecture into a different technique, and connects the built enclosures to the wider tradition of rock-cut construction seen across the Taş Tepeler landscape — where whole structures, pillars and basins were cut directly from the bedrock.
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What is established, and what is debated
Established
Enclosure E is cut into bedrock and preserves two pedestals with tub-shaped hollows, interpreted as the bases for a lost central-pillar pair by close comparison with Enclosures C and D. A smoothed rock-cut floor, a spiral-like basin and cup-holes are also worked into the surface.
Debated or unknown
Almost everything else: the full plan, the size and decoration of the missing pillars, the precise function of the basin and cup-holes, and the building's exact date and relationship to the other enclosures. The date is by association, not direct measurement.
Kept deliberately short and hedged: with the pillars gone and the features weathered on the open plateau, an honest account of Enclosure E stops at the sockets, the worked floor and the basins — and does not reconstruct the rest.
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Sources
Schmidt, K. 2012. Göbekli Tepe: A Stone Age Sanctuary in South-Eastern Anatolia. Berlin: ex oriente. (The bedrock-cut "Rock Temple" / Enclosure E; rock-cut pedestals as pillar bases; quarrying from the living rock.)
Dietrich, O. et al. 2012. "The role of cult and feasting in the emergence of Neolithic communities. New evidence from Göbekli Tepe." Antiquity 86(333): 674–695.
Clare, L. 2020. "Göbekli Tepe, Turkey. A brief summary of research at a new World Heritage Site (2015–2019)." e-Forschungsberichte des DAI 2020/2: 81–88. (Rock-cut features and bedrock working across the site.)
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Related structures
Enclosure E is best read alongside the enclosures whose central pairs still stand in exactly the kind of bedrock-cut base that survives here.
To visit — Göbekli Tepe lies northeast of Şanlıurfa, Türkiye; Enclosure E's rock-cut features lie on the open plateau. Finds from the site are conserved at the Şanlıurfa Archaeology Museum.
