The world's oldest calendar, more than 12,000 years old, has been found. Photo

Archaeologists have found the world's oldest calendar in the mysterious Gebekli Tepe site in Turkey. The discovery was carved on a stone pillar that is over 12,000 years old.

According to the researchers, the found measurement system strongly suggests that ancient people knew how to tell time 10,000 years before it was documented in Ancient Greece in 150 BC. This calendar could rewrite the chronology of human civilization, writes DailyMail.

Gobekli Tepe is the oldest man-made structure ever found. This complex was built between 9600 and 8200 BC, meaning it predates Stonehenge by more than 6000 years.

There are several stone pillars at the site that have long been studied. However, after a recent analysis, researchers from the University of Edinburgh in Scotland concluded that one slab was carved as a calendar.

The column featured a "V" symbol representing one day, as well as 365 such markings, indicating the days of the year. The system of markings also included 12 months.

The pillar was divided into two parts with rows of "V" symbols in the upper part and smaller rectangle symbols in the lower main part, which shows a bird holding a round disk symbol above a scorpion.

According to the study, the column depicts a disk symbolizing the sun, and the scorpion is representative of the Greek constellation Scorpius. The team of experts also identified a bird leaning toward a coiled snake, which could represent the autumn constellation of the Serpent.

The discovery suggests that people recorded dates using precession, a wobble in the earth's axis that affects the movement of constellations across the sky. It was believed that the ancient Greeks were the first to use this method in 150 BC. However, researchers have changed this fact.

But the main discovery was that the ancient inhabitants had immortalized the memory of a catastrophic comet impact almost 13,000 years ago. After all, the pillar also has carvings depicting an impact from space that caused a mini-ice age of 1200 years. It was at that time that large animals were wiped out, which led to changes in agriculture. It also gave rise to the creation of more complex societies.

"It seems that the inhabitants of Gebekli Tepe were avid skywatchers, which is to be expected given that their world was destroyed by a comet impact. This event could have been the impetus for the creation of civilization, launching a new religion and prompting the development of agriculture to cope with the cold climate. Perhaps their attempts to record what they saw are the first steps toward the development of writing millennia later," said study leader Dr. Martin Sweetman of the University of Edinburgh's School of Engineering.

The researchers compared the images of the pillars to symbols found on other ancient artifacts to confirm that the latest discovery does indeed represent the solar calendar and the comet's main impact.

The team of scientists also discovered a second pillar that depicted the Taurid meteor shower, which lasted 27 days and is believed to be the source of the comet's debris.

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