Month: November 2022

Göbekli Tepe Enclosure C: Pinnacle of Swiderian Design

Post author By lbwriter
Post date November 28, 2022

Enclosure C: Pinnacle of Swiderian Design

Swiderians Disappear From Turkey!

Göbekli Tepe Without Swiderians

Göbekli Tepe Enclosure C: Pinnacle of Swiderian Design

We don’t know the order of all of the enclosures. This is, in part, because only ten per cent of the site has been excavated thus far. I could find specific dates for only four enclosures. We will look at them in order, then at the others.

Following Enclosure D, which we have already explored, is Enclosure E. Only the smooth bedrock floor and two pedestals remain. Were the enclosure and its contents removed before being filled in? Why? There are no answers here.

Enclosure C: Pinnacle of Swiderian Design

The next oldest is Enclosure C. This is the most complex structure, although it is not intact as was Enclosure D.

Enclosure C is more magnificent in that it has an approach to be walked before entering the main structure.

First, one must mount an eight step staircase: the oldest staircase in the world! More innovative engineering.

Second, one must enter the structure through the Lion’s Gate: a U shaped stone entrance. Atop each upright is a fierce quadruped, possibly a lion. They face away from each other. Once through the Lion’s Gate, one walks down a stone-enclosed path to the main structure.

Swiderians Disappear From Turkey!

With Swiderian efficiency and precision, the stairway, Lion’s Gate, walkway, and smooth bedrock floor could all have been constructed concurrently.

Then the prepared central pillars, one of which has a leaping fox on an inner side facing the participant, are erected onto the floor. It was necessary for this to happen before the walls were built because the pillars would not have had enough room to enter and maneuver afterward.

And then something momentous happened resulting in the departure of the Swiderians. Although their influence is seen a while longer, there is no evidence of their precision engineering.

What happened that caused the Swiderians to leave an enclosure unfinished? How odd!

I can think of only one explanation. If the Swiderians did, indeed, dominate others by using a “protection racket,” the worst thing that could happen would be for a meteorite to crash near Göbekli Tepe, proving the Swiderian claims to be fraudulent.

Göbekli Tepe Without Swiderians

Construction of Enclosure C continued without the Swiderians, but precision and innovative engineering have disappeared.

The outer wall was the older of the two. Only eight of its T pillars remain. It is not known how many originally existed. One interesting finding is Pillar 12, which has a bear carved on its “head.” Nothing like this has been seen before.

The pillar shows five birds with a backdrop of V shaped lines that could represent water ripples. On the shaft is a threatening boar above a leaping fox. No vultures in sight.

Pillar 59 is a Sighting Stone, although only the lower half survives. Was that from vandalism? Anyway, the Sighting Stone is not aligned with the central pillars! An intelligent person would begin the enclosure by setting the Seeing Stone and building from there.

The wall as a whole “wobbles” its way around the oval shape. The T pillars do not face the center of the enclosure, but are off to the right or left by different degrees each time.

Do you see why I think the Swiderians were no longer in control of construction? They would never have been so sloppy!

The walkway, as it is called, between the walls is mysterious in that there is no obvious way to enter it. Either the access point has not been recognized or the person had to scale the inner wall. Most likely, the space was not meant to be walked at all. The inner wall was meant to block off the Sighting Stone that failed them. There will be no more such stones.

The inner wall shows the same lack of skill as the outer wall, becoming more like a circle, which is easier to construct than an oval. Again, the T pillars are inconsistently set.

It’s clear that the people finishing Enclosure C have limited skills. They had been told even where to place the stones for the walls. Now, they are on their own.

Göbekli Tepe D: Mysteries Continue

Post author By lbwriter
Post date November 21, 2022

Central Pillars

Stone Guardians

The Oldest Ideagrams?

Exploiting Catastrophobia?

The Final Clue?

Experiencing Enclosure D

Göbekli Tepe D: Mysteries Continue

Central Pillars

They stand side by side in the center of Enclosure D, these two T pillars, even more massive than the ones along the sides. Each is 18 feet tall and weighs 16.5 tons.

If we wondered how the smaller pillars were raised, the difficulty has now multiplied.

How did they stand? These pillars stand in rectangular pedestals carved into the bedrock: but at only 4-6 inches deep, the pillars are unstable.

At the site, they are supported by scaffolding.

That seems odd. It’s not at all what we have come to expect of these precise engineers. Maybe they were stabilized by the roof that they supported at its apex?

Another thing seems odd. The top stones slant downward slightly toward the enclosure entrance.

Stone Guardians

Oh, my goodness!

These pillars represent people! They have skinny arms slanting downward along the broad sides of the uprights. The fingers almost meet on the thin side, just above a belt’s buckle. From the belt hangs a fox (wolf?) pelt loin cloth, the animal’s tail hanging downward. And each “person” wears a neck ornament.

That makes the top stone the head of the statue. There are no features at all!

Now, we have more questions! Was facial identity unimportant? Did one statue represent a group of people instead of an individual? Are features left off as a kind of respect by not reproducing the face?

Who are these stone guardians? Heroes? Gods? Ancestors? All of the above? Is this the long memory of the Sethite line from Adam? Why only two? Why are both men? Is one a chief and the other a shaman?

For that matter, do the other pillars also represent people?

And why is the eastern central pillar more decorated than the western?

The western pillar has a featureless belt and buckle. It has a fox loin cloth. (Was the fox/wolf already the evil trickster it would become in world mythology?)

The head of a horned bull is the neck ornament, and one arm seems to carry a fox.

The eastern pillar’s belt is wide and highly decorated. There are flightless birds on the pedestal.

The Oldest Ideagrams?

Speaking of the decorations, they do not seem random. They are few in variety. The most frequently used are the C and the H…or maybe it’s two connected Ts. All of them are sometimes in these positions, but sometimes on their sides. Does position mean anything?

None of these are obvious carvings of natural things. Yet, they don’t seem to form words. It is thought that these and other less frequent symbols are ideagrams. They express an idea, such as love or war or courage. If so, we don’t know what ideas they represent.

On the neck of the eastern pillar is this: an H, beneath that a doughnut with a hole, and below that a C on its side so it looks like a cup.

The belt is completely decorated with Hs and (s in varied positions. The belt comes around to the front of the pillar where there is an oddly decorated buckle. It is a thick U shape with another inside it. Inside of both is a single thick upright. (See the photo above.)

Exploiting Catastrophobia?

The book interprets the belt buckle symbol as a three-tailed comet that caused massive destruction. It hypothesizes that the Swiderians obtained primacy by exploiting the catastrophobia of other cultures. They offered “protection” from a repeat of the event through knowledge and ceremony.

If that is a three-tailed comet on the buckle, and the Swiderians did act on those fears, it makes sense to give it important placement.

Remember, though, that we have already recognized serious questions about an event of worldwide destruction by a comet. However, comets could have been part of that destruction, perhaps even an early part of the event. In that case, they could be remembered as the heralds of worldwide destruction.

All of this is, of course, speculation.

The Final Clue?

You know, I keep returning to the heads of the central pillars.

It’s not just the featureless visages. It’s the heads themselves.

Why do they bother me? The overall art isn’t naturalistic, so why should I expect the heads to be accurate human heads? After all, there are no legs, and the arms are extremely thin, as if these parts are not important. Perhaps that’s also the message of the blank faces.

But the heads are so very alien! Look at the markedly thin faces. And the proportions of the heads are not even close to normal.

That’s what bothers me: the proportions! The anterior-posterior ratio of each head is significantly longer than the width. In fact, it seems to be accentuated to draw attention to the head.

Maybe that’s why the faces are featureless. It’s the heads that are important.

And the heads are definitely Swiderian!

Experiencing Enclosure D

You are in the time of Enclosure D.

You have never seen the night sky so clear and bright. But it’s normal here and now because this is pre-industrialization.

You enter the Enclosure.

The night sky behind you illuminates the interior darkness in a straight path to the Sighting Stone, the heart of this place. Your eyes are drawn to the hole in the stone, illuminated with its own sky light.

Looming between you and the Sighting Stone are the massive Stone Guardians: two statues of Swiderians whose heads soar into the shadows of the roof, but can be seen bent toward you, staring at you while you enter, as if demanding to know your purpose here.

Slipping sideways to a bench, you are deeply relieved that you will not be the one to walk between those pillars tonight.

Göbekli Tepe Begins

Post author By lbwriter
Post date November 18, 2022

Enclosure D: the Earliest Structure

Wall, Benches, and Pillars

The Sighting Stone

The Vulture Stone

Connecting the Sighting Stone and the Vulture Stone

The Center

Göbekli Tepe Begins

Since we are looking at history chronologically, let’s look first at the oldest structure of Göbekli Tepe. Then we will track changes at the site through time.

Enclosure D: the Earliest Structure

We start at Enclosure D (which means it was the fourth to be uncovered). Curiously, it is the largest. Wouldn’t one expect it to be the smallest, with enlargement/development later?

It is also the best preserved: the most carefully packed. Interesting. This site was obviously not left in a hurry. We are looking at a deliberate burial. Why would they do this? Were people planning to return and resume use of this structure?

It is ovoid, rather like an egg, with a ratio of 5:4. Its dimensions are 60 x 45.7 feet. Why did they choose this shape and these dimensions?

The floor is artificially smoothed bedrock. We haven’t seen this before, but we have seen artificially smoothed walls for cave paintings. We now know that the builders were creative enough to repurpose knowledge.

Once all of the fill is removed, we notice that the floor is bare, as if a tidy housewife removed all errata and swept the room before it was filled. This makes no sense!

Nowhere else in the world has this behavior been discovered.

Lessons Learned:

The builders knew of art in the far west (Spain, France) and the engineering of the Zanzians. They adapted knowledge to their needs here.
Everything in the building and filling is carefully and precisely done. These builders were precise, and the structure was the epitome of art and engineering up to that time—or at least since Noah’s time.

Wall, Benches, and Pillars

The perimeter wall is clearly like architecture we have already seen by the Zarzians. Therefore, the builders were either Zarzians or persons who learned architecture from them. That would be the Swiderians.

Around the walls are benches indicating that this structure was used for one or more kinds of meetings.

Twelve structures interrupt the benches and wall.

Eleven (there used to be twelve) are pillars in the shape of a T, made of an upright slab topped with another rectangular slab, narrow edges together. Other narrow edges of both stones face the center of the space. They are always called pillars, not stelae, indicating they were meant to hold something up, probably a roof.

How did they erect these slabs? And how did they erect the crosspiece on top?

And why are they in the form of a T? A simple upright would support a roof just as well.

The pillars are decorated with carved reliefs of a large variety of species: foxes, birds, snakes, boars, aurochs, gazelles, onagers, and large carnivores. Many of them are in action, even aggression.

Not all of them were native to Turkey at this time. Therefore, the builders were well-traveled, or were people who came here from distant lands, or both.

Were the animals merely décor? Or was this space used for education?

Man is missing. Unlike earlier art, humans are not shown as a part of nature.

Lessons learned:

There is a change in man’s interaction with nature. Man is no longer considered “at one” with nature.
The builders were probably the Swiderians.
1. They came from west to east and therefore knew animals and art from Spain/France.
1. Their contact with Zarzians taught them state of the art engineering.
1. The attitude that man is separate from nature is unique.
1. Engineering is a huge jump from the Zarzian wall.

The Sighting Stone

The twelfth structure is also rectangular, but with the wide side facing the center. At five feet tall, it is shorter than the T pillars. If the T pillars held up the roof, there is an open space between the top of the sighting stone and the roof.

A hole ten inches in diameter pierces the slab three feet above ground. Because of the hole, this slab is called the Sighting Stone, in reference to the hypotheses that the purpose was to look through the hole. After kneeling, the sky is seen through the hole. However, it’s just as likely that the hole was made for something to pass through as part of a ceremony.

How did they pierce the slab? Why is this stone different? Why was the hole made?

It is directly across from the entrance. Is that significant?

Is this the oldest celestial observatory? What does that say about their beliefs? Or is the interest purely scientific?

The Vulture Stone

The T pillar to the left of the pierced slab is called the Vulture Stone because there are vulture-like birds on it and they seem very important. Remember the birds we looked at earlier? Vultures fit that general description.

On the top half of the pillar’s crosspiece is what looks to be stylized vegetation, like the bushy top of a tree. Along the top above the “tree” are the rectangular shapes with loops looking like a row of handbags.

Below all of this, but still on the crosspiece, are two vultures facing right. Their scrawny necks, wing styles, and hooked beaks make the identity fairly certain. The larger one balances a sphere on its left wing. Is it the sun? A ball?

Above the smaller vulture on the right are two long-necked wader birds in the vegetation.

The carvings on the upright stone that can be clearly seen are a large scorpion and another large vulture with a headless human lying on its neck.

Wait! Is the sphere a human head? In other art of the time a severed human head clearly indicated the soul of a dead person. Is the vulture responsible for transporting the soul to its final destination?

Are we looking at evidence of a religious bird cult?

In that case, maybe this is a temple after all! Of course to determine that, we must find connections between meetings that were held here and the bird cult. We haven’t found any.

Connecting the Sighting Stone and the Vulture Stone

An interesting hypothesis is suggested in the book Göbekli Tepe: Genesis of the Gods. It is particularly interesting because traditional dating and biblical dating are now drawing close.

According to the hypothesis, the builders had a bird cult centered on the vulture. Cult worship may not have been the only kind of meetings in Enclosure D. After all, religion and education have co-existed throughout time. Perhaps feasts and funerals were also held there.

The shaman or perhaps any worshipper walked from the entrance to the Sighting Stone. There was interest and knowledge in astronomy, and maybe astrology as well.

At the time that Enclosure D was built, the hole in the stone would have directed sight to Cygnus, the Swan. When the star pattern of Cygnus is overlaid onto a vulture, it fits!

So, the builders knew the constellation Swan as the Vulture constellation. And it is to that constellation that the soul of the dead man is being carried.

Why is the large (and therefore important) scorpion below the vulture with the “head?” At that time, the Milky Way’s Great Rift stretched from Scorpio, which represented earth, to Cygnus, the heavenly destination. The vulture with the headless body is below the scorpion.

The hypothesis says that the sighting hole is also a “soul hole” through which the dead person’s soul could escape and be directed toward its destination.

The wavy lines around the hole are seen as a woman’s body, and the hole is then just where the vulva would be.

Remember, all of this is only hypothesis. There is no proof.

The Center

We’re not done yet! In the center of the enclosure are more structures and more mysteries! We’ll look at that next time.

Göbekli Tepe: Site of Megalithic Mystery

Post author By lbwriter
Post date November 10, 2022

The Discovery

Peculiar Site

Mysteries Already!

Beware of Bias!

Göbekli Tepe: Site of Megalithic Mystery

Long before the mighty stones of the pyramids and Stonehenge were erected, mammoth megaliths soared skyward on a mountain in Turkey. The oldest site with gargantuan architecture is known as Göbekli Tepe. And it was almost lost forever.

The Discovery

A 1963 archaeological team noted several knolls on a black limestone plateau of a mountain ridge 750 meters above sea level. It’s fifty miles from where we identified the site of the Garden of Eden. Today, the nearest city is Şanliurfa.

The man-made mound consists of earth and rock debris. To the west was a large collection of stone tools. Also present were cut and dressed slabs with some attempt at carved relief.

An expert decided that it was the remains of a Byzantine cemetery. The team lost interest.

In October 1994, Professor Klaus Schmidt decided to survey the area before it was given to limestone quarrying. Professor Schmidt immediately recognized the slab architecture as similar to other sites in the area.

Göbekli Tepe was saved! But not even Schmidt guessed the massive amount of discovery and mystery he was about to uncover.

Returning with a complete dig team, Schmidt and his team drove as close to the barren Germuş mountain rangeas possible. They hiked to the top of the highest mountain. They carried all of their food, clothes, and equipment with them.

Peculiar Site

Very difficult to access, but widely visible, Göbekli Tepe was far from the nearest springs. The quarry from which the stone slabs were cut was at the bottom of the mountain. Items still waiting to be discovered had sometimes traveled hundreds of miles to be used at this place.

The mound perched on the mountain peak, widely visible in every direction. It was one thousand feet in diameter, the length of 2 ¾ football fields.

Schmidt dug into the mound. The debris was a mixture of limestone rubble, flint artifacts, stone vessels and tools, and a large number of animal bones.

He hit stone. He used his tools to check the age of the dig site. He couldn’t believe the reading. He checked again.

The site, known as Göbekli Tepe, was far older than any other megalithic site in the world. It would change everything that historians had believed about ancient people!

Mysteries Already!

Schmidt’s team had barely begun. Mysteries already confronted them.

Why was such a remote site chosen?
How did they transport megaliths from the bottom of the mountain to the building site at the mountain top?
Who built it?
Why?
Where did they get the large numbers of laborers?
How did laborers maintain hydration?
Surrounding villages were hunter-gatherer settlements. Did this construction change them to agrarian?
And most of all, why was the architecture buried? For it became obvious while they dug deeper that the fill had been carefully packed in and around structures, possibly in an effort to preserve them, as if the builders intended to return.

Even today, decades later, we don’t know most of the answers. But digging continues.

Beware of Bias!

Nearly every reference to Göbekli Tepe calls it The First Temple. If you read Göbekli Tepe: Genesis of the Gods you will find most of the book filled with hypotheses. Now, I find hypotheses interesting, but most of these are based on later archeological finds.

It is illogical to base hypotheses about the first of anything on later similar finds. It’s possible that aspects of the early site were appropriated later for purposes different than was intended originally.

Any hypotheses we discuss will be related to facts and authorities already established. The basic difficulty is that we are still dealing with preliterate cultures. The builders can’t tell us the answers.

The Dominators!

Post author By lbwriter
Post date November 1, 2022

A Different Look

The Journey

Vanishing Point

The Dominators!

The Swiderians were a different kind of people. They looked different. They traveled west to east: opposite of all other cultures. The restless people didn’t stay long in most places, as seen by relatively few hunting remains. Traversing the treacherous territory of Eastern Europe and the western Near East required humans of tremendous willpower and endurance.

Like vacuum cleaners, the Swiderians sucked up the cultures, skills, territory, resources, and learning of others until they emerged the dominant culture.

A Different Look

The Swiderians had skulls that were dolichocephalic. That is, the anterior-posterior length was unusually long compared to the width of the skull. Their faces were thin with prominent and massive brow ridges, slanted foreheads, high cheekbones, and strong chins. They were significantly taller and larger than other people.

The Journey

Swiderian travels can be traced by their unique tanged and leaf shaped points. We see settlements first along the Vistula, Oder, and Warta Rivers of northern Poland. The Swiderians then ranged east to settle on the Dneiper, Volga, Oka, and Don Rivers in Russia.

Then came a major shift: in central Poland the Swiderians developed efficient mining of exotic forms of flint, hematite, and ochre. They commanded these important resources of paint and points and discovered that they loved to trade.

But the Polish mines lacked the volcanic glass called obsidian that everyone craved for scalpel-sharp points on weapons and tools. The Swiderians set out toward the known sites of this mineral, determined to dominate that trade also.

They traveled south into the foothills of the Carpathian Mountains, which held three sources of obsidian.

From there, some continued south to the Crimea. Whereas there were no sources of obsidian in the Crimea, the area has always been a trade crossroads. Perhaps that it why the Crimea was chosen as their destination. And there, the Swiderians would have met the Zarzians!

It was probably the eastern Swinderians who travelled south to the Caucasus Mountains where there were five sources of obsidian.

A short but difficult trip south from there would find them reaching the three sites in the Armenian highlands—and the Zarzian mines.

Vanishing Point

It is at this time in history when the Zarzians, their unique culture, and their trade empire vanish.

Were the Zarzians forced to give up their trade by right of conquest? Perhaps.

But the Swiderians seem to be more inclined to diplomacy, perhaps sharing cultures and knowledge with the Zanzians.

Then, like an amoeba, they may have figuratively surrounded the Zanzians and absorbed them into an enriched Swiderian culture.