The Sphinx and Gobekli Tepe

The article here ;

http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2008/apr/23/archaeology.turkey


Makes reference to the discovery of a Sphinx image at Gobekli Tepe in Turkey ;

" "Look at this", he said, pointing at a photo of an exquisitely carved sculpture showing an animal, half-human, half-lion. "It's a sphinx, thousands of years before Egypt. South-eastern Turkey, northern Syria - this region saw the wedding night of our civilisation."

The civilisation that built Gobekli Tepe did so at roughly the time period of the later dating theory of the Sphinx.

Dated at around 9,500BC, he site of Gobekli Tepe is 5,500 years older than the first cities of Mesopotamia, and 7,000 years older than Stonehenge.

A geologist at Boston University, Professor Robert Schoch, verified that water eroded the Sphinx. Geologists know scientifically that wind/sand erosion on limestone differs from water erosion. Schoch states that the pattern of erosion on the limestone body of the Sphinx is consistent with water erosion. Many of his colleagues back his findings.

The erosion "…is entirely consistent with precipitation-induced weathering where you have water, rain water beating down from above (p. 422)." He also placed the age of the Sphinx between 5,000 - 7,000 B.C.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G%C3%B6bekli_Tepe

The site, currently undergoing excavation by German and Turkish archaeologists, was erected by hunter-gatherers in the 9th millennium BC (c. 11,000 years ago).

Could the Sphinx have been built by the same people who built Gobleki Tepe ?

Could the same people who erected the massive and awesome Gobleki Tepe site also built the Sphinx - and now that we have the same symbolism of the Sphinx at the Gobleki Tepe site this means that potentially they could have - not only did they have the technology to erect the Sphinx they also had conceptualised the symbolism of the Sphinx itself.

The discovery of the image of the Sphinx at Gobleki Tepe is very important - for the image shows us that the symbolism of the Sphinx arose not in Egypt but at Gobleki Tepe first.

This means it is possible that the Sphinx is far older than contemporary history allows.