World's oldest temple found in Turkey

Washington, March 20 (ANI): A team of archaeologists has claimed that a temple being excavated in southeastern Turkey is 12,000 years old and is likely the oldest temple ever uncovered in the world.

According to a report by United Press International (UPI), the site was first identified in 1986 when a farmer tilling his field in Sanliurfa found a statuette in the soil.

Since then, archaeologists have uncovered the foundation of the temple built in the Neolithic Age along with carvings of pigs, foxes, snakes, fawns and headless humans.

Officials with the Harran University Archaeology Department have yet to identify the culture that built the temple or their belief system.

German teams were the first to excavate beginning in 1995, but the Turkish Culture and Tourism Ministry placed the site on its first-degree protection list in 2005, taking control of the research.

Prior to this discovery, the world's oldest known temple was in Malta, dating from 5,000 B.C. (ANI)