The Genesis Secret: Read Free Page B

the sides.
    So far, forty-three stones had been unearthed. They were arranged in circles from five to ten metres across. Around the circles were benches of rock, smallish niches, and walls of mud brick.
    Rob considered what he’d learned. All this was reasonably interesting. But it was the age of the site that had really got people truly excited. Gobekli Tepe was staggeringly ancient. According to Breitner, the complex was at least ten thousand, maybe eleven thousand years old. That was to say around 8000-9000 BC .
    Eleven thousand years old? It sounded incredibly ancient. But was it? Rob went back to his history book to compare this age with other places. Stonehenge was built around 2000BC. The Sphinx maybe 3000 BC . Prior to the discovery and dating of Gobekli Tepe, the ‘most ancient’ megalithic complex had been located in Malta-and that was dated around 3500 BC .
    Gobekli Tepe was, therefore, five thousand years older than any comparable structure. Rob was headed to one of the oldest human constructions ever built. Maybe the oldest.
    He felt his Story Antennae twitching. World’s Oldest Building Found in Turkey? Hmmm. Maybe not front page, but quite possibly third page. Anice big splash. Moreover, despite these reports in the paper, it seemed as if no western journalist had actually made it out to Gobekli. All the articles in western media were second-or third-hand, via Turkish news agencies. Rob would be the first man on the ground.
    At last his journey was over. The plane banked and dived and trundled to a halt in Sanliurfa airport. It was a dark clear night. So clear that through the windows of the plane the night actually looked cool. But when the door opened and the plane ladder descended Rob felt a blast of oppressively hot air. As if someone had just opened an enormous oven. This was a hot place. Very hot. They were on the edge of the great Syrian Desert, after all.
    The airport was tiny. Rob liked tiny airports. They always had an idiosyncrasy lacking in huge, impersonal modern airports. And Sanliurfa airport was especially idiosyncratic. The bags were brought by hand to the Arrivals Lounge by a fat man with a beard and a stained vest, and Passport Control consisted of one guy half-asleep at a rickety desk.
    In the airport car park a warm dusty breeze was knocking the fronds of some straggly palm trees. Several cab drivers eyed him from the taxi rank. Rob looked and chose. ‘Sanliurfa,’ he said to one of the younger guys.
    The stubble-jawed man smiled. His denim shirt was torn, but clean. He seemed friendly. Friendlierthan the other taxi guys, who were yawning and spitting. Even better, this young guy seemed to speak English. After a quick chat about the fee and the whereabouts of Rob’s hotel, the driver took Rob’s bags and slung them manfully in the car boot, then climbed in the front and nodded and said, ‘Urfa! Not Sanliurfa. Urfa!’
    Rob sat back in the taxi seat. He was very tired now. It had been a long, long journey from Tel Aviv. Tomorrow he would go and see this weird dig. But now he had to sleep. Yet the taxi driver was keen to keep him talking.
    ‘You want beer? I know good place.’
    Rob groaned, inwardly. Flat dark fields were racing past. ‘No thanks.’
    ‘Woman? I know good woman!’
    ‘Er, no, Not really.’
    ‘Carpet. You want carpet. I have brother…?’
    Rob sighed, and looked at the rear-view mirror. Then he saw the taxi driver staring back at him. The man was smiling. He was joking.
    ‘Very funny.’
    The taxi driver laughed. ‘Fucking carpets!’ Then, without taking his eye off the road, he turned and offered a hand. Rob shook it.
    ‘My name Radevan,’ the driver said. ‘You?’
    ‘Robert. Rob Luttrell.’
    ‘Hello, Mr Robert Luttrell.’
    Rob laughed and said hello. They were on the outskirts of town now. Lamplights and tyre shops lined the empty, litter-strewn street. A Conoco gasstation sign glowed red through the sultry gloom. Concrete blocks of flats rose up