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I was watching a National Geographic documentary about the famous "Göbekli Tepe". In many of the articles and in the documentary - they say it was discovered by "a shepherd" or "the shepherd" or "the old shepherd".

I did some google searches with "shepherd" + "gobekli tepe" and didn't manage to know the name yet?

So does the shepard have a name or other identifier? What group/tribe did he belong to?

Wikipedia does not mention the shepherd:

"In 1994, Klaus Schmidt, now of the German Archaeological Institute, who had previously been working at Nevalı Çori, was looking for another site to dig, leading a team of his own. He reviewed the archaeological literature on the surrounding area, found the Chicago researchers’ brief description of Göbekli Tepe, and decided to give it another look. With his knowledge of comparable objects at Nevalı Çori, he recognized the possibility that the rocks and slabs were parts of T-shaped pillars." Wikipedia

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closed as off-topic by ComeAndGo, Pieter Geerkens, Kobunite, Steven Drennon Jan 14 '14 at 18:38


  • "Requests for trivia or basic historical facts are off-topic if they can be easily answered by looking up the relevant topic on Wikipedia. We're trying to complement common historical references, not duplicate them." – Community, Pieter Geerkens, Kobunite, Steven Drennon

Close - trivia IMO. – user2590 Jan 9 '14 at 6:49
It does seem like a rather unimportant detail. What's your interest in the shepherd's name? – T.E.D. Jan 9 '14 at 14:25
I'm not sure that the shepard has a name. But he must have some kind of identifier/tribal affiliation, and that identifier may be important in evaluating the Gobekli Tepe discovery. – Tom Au Jan 9 '14 at 21:42
This turned out to take several minutes to research an answer - making it non-trivial in my books. – Pieter Geerkens Jan 10 '14 at 4:47
up vote 1 down vote accepted

A page from www.ancient-code.com shows up in a Google search for "Gobekli Tepe shepherd", but won't display for me (at least not right now). However it states in the search blurb:

It was an old Kurdish shepherd named Savak Yildiz who discovered Göbekli Tepe in October 1994 when, spotting something, he brushed away the dust to expose a large oblong-shaped stone.

Remembered how to invoke the cached page.

Here's a picture of Savak Yildiz from Mail Online.

Savak Yildiz

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Although apparently the site was noted as possibly neolithic in 1963 according to Wikipedia. Seems to be yet another case of somebody discovering something already discovered. :-) – Lennart Regebro Jan 10 '14 at 6:20
thank you for the info :) – mireille raad Jan 11 '14 at 3:00
